Work started at home during the week with the chute, making a wooden lining around the outside of the galvanised sheet trough which was cut and folded last week.
I cheated by using treated ‘modern’ pine for the base, needing to conserve the Oregon planks for the floor. I used glue, nails and tacks to hold it all together. By the time I had it at the Mill, the whole assembly was very rigid and fairly heavy! It needed a good sanding, then sealing with Interior Woodoc No 5.
But first the floor had to be put back in and the bearings fixed down again. For the meantime, the planks differ in colour, but it won’t be long before they all look the same! There were more planks I would have liked to replace, but there were only so many ‘new’ ones and even they weren’t too wonderful. We are going to have the whole building fumigated professionally soon.
In the picture below the ‘new’ planks are in, the pulley is also reassembled, the belt for the grain cleaner and main elevator is back on and the whole assembly is turning with water power again. It’s always a relief when dismantled parts are assembled again! Walking around in that area is now much safer!
A big difference from just two weeks ago:
There was also milling to do for Open Days next week. Last week I had milled 16kg for Zest Catering; their order was for 70 litres. Unsure about the conversion rate, we weighed 1kg and poured it into a measuring jug. In this case, it was exactly 1.5 litres, so the conversion is easy. I milled a further 22kg for them before the grain ran out. 38kg X 1.5 = 57 litres. I think some of the 70 litres they need is for baking on Saturday night for Sunday, so I can mill the balance on Saturday.
We are keeping a record of the number of 1kg bags milled out of a sack of wheat. This was an ideal opportunity, milling a whole bag in just two batches. 49¼kg out of a 50kg bag is not bad!
Once that was milled, sieved and weighed, I could concentrate on the chute again. Cutting the complicated angle at the end was a hit and miss business and once again I can’t imagine a better tool for the job than the Black & Decker Scorpion! With the combination of wood and galvanised steel lining, it was simply a question of changing the blade and offering up and cutting repeatedly until the two matched. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s nearly there!
The direct line out of the original chute will feed the grain cleaner directly below it, but when that is not in use, the opening is blanked off and the grain goes to the second option; in this case, the new chute to the Stamford Mill:
The blanking plate is shown in place above. I cut a bit more of a slot in the floor at the lower end, widening and deepening the existing one, just to give more of an angle for the chute:
I hope the grain will flow! The chute is out of line with the slot in the floor below the meal elevator pulley on the left which we think drove a rotary meal sieve below. The end of the chute is nicely in the middle of the hopper of the Stamford; it will be slightly shorter when the top end is trimmed off more accurately. The ‘new’ floor can be seen on the right:
So, once again, we’re ready for Open Days!
Andy Selfe
24th Jan 2010