Next Friday and Saturday, the West Cape Tractor & Engine Club is having its Annual Show, this year in Villiersdorp nearby. We’re pulling out all stops to make it an interesting show, which will include ‘Sheaf to Loaf’ exhibitions. Arthur Wilding’s 1921 Aveling & Porter Steam Traction Engine will be powering a Ransomes wooden threshing machine. Hermann Geldenhuys will have his roller mill and Gawie his ‘portable kitchen range’ including a Bolinder stove. 

I had an order for 10kg of meal for baking at the Show as well as another order for 10kg. During the day, there were visitors who weren’t holding themselves back with their orders, which amounted to 10 more; so at last, I didn’t have to hold the Vitruvian Mill back! In the end I milled 34½kg. I mention this level of accuracy because we are interested to know what the losses are between grain sack and meal bag. We started with a new sack today and now have a record book. 

But my first surprise was what the rats had managed to do in one week!

Two Stationary Engine shows and some farm work have kept me from my favourite pastime, but preparations were made in the meantime. Jan-Renier Voûte visited last time and offered to make up the blank for the ‘Miller’s Willow’ out of some dried Syringa wood he has. He also measured up the paper bags we use and offered to make a wooden meal-scoop. 

Before leaving for an overseas holiday he delivered the two, so my project was to finish the Willow and fit it, this being the final stage in the restoration of the Vitruvian Mill! I simply had to sand the wooden arm down until it had the right amount of springiness to hold the ‘rap’ of the shoe against the rotating ‘damsel’. This gives the agitation required to shake the grain off the end of the shoe at a controlled rate.

Again something different! We’ve been meaning to visit Elim Mill since we visited Genadendal Mill, also a Moravian Mission Station, about two years ago. Joanna Marx, who introduced me to Compagnes Drift, received an SOS call in the week from Malcolm Temmers, Municipal Manager of Elim, saying their Water Wheel was rubbing against the building! Could she please come and give some advice?

Immaculately kept houses in the Main Street of Elim. 

The race is on to have the mill working, or at least the wheel turning, for Heritage Day, which is this coming Thursday! I was up very early, and after getting my spray driver organised, was on the road at 6am and at Elim well before 8. During the week, we’d modified an existing puller at our workshop with a ring to locate over the end of the Gudgeon on the outer end of the axle-tree. We welded on big chain links at each end to hook chain blocks on to. I always drive around with several of them and lengths of chain and shackles. To protect the wood of the spokes, I had a big bag of thick rags.

The puller is positioned on the end of the Gudgeon shaft of the axle tree.

Some of the 13 buckets which I’d found on the belt at the bottom of the elevator were badly rusted, so after polishing them up and neutralising the rust, I repaired them with a wear-resistant epoxy product we use here for pumps, etc., called Steenvas ST100. By wrapping the outside of the bucket with insulation tape and applying it by finger on the inside, I could re-form the shape.

I then gave them and the others a coat of Duram NS5 primer.

Sooner or later, the stones of the Vitruvian Mill will need to be dressed. When I lifted the Runner back into position I used two 6-metre long, 9” X 3” wooden beams which I brought from home, supported on the top of the wall on the North side and a steel frame I’d made on the South side. This was only ever meant to be temporary, and those beams would pass through where the Horse and Hopper now are. The beams are extremely heavy, and difficult to install or dismantle and put away when not in use. The roof beams are definitely not strong enough to lift the stones which I guess weigh near a tonne each.

At home I had glued the joints in the beams, the next step was to pin them. I found it best to work on the back of the lorry with the ‘legs’ hanging down. It kept raining all week (we had 44mm), luckily the glue is Balcotan which can take it. Also the cold grown pine wan’t letting much soak in and it was soon dry. I used Woodoc 5 Poly Wax sealer Indoors which is a wood-treatment, not a varnish, to bring the colour out. The difference is remarkable!

At last a deal was made between our favourite sound/video shop, Vidi-Vox in Hermanus, (which is also where our Movie Club is) for a used amplifier and some speakers out of the cinema in the same shopping mall. The next question was where to install it. Originally, we had chosen the corner on the left as you go in to the second room of the Mill. But at the same time, we were short of a suitable place to leave the Visitors’ Book, and the file on Mills; some kind of lectern was required. A visit to Mr Furniture in the Village produced the beginnings of the ideal thing, a table-top lectern! The lady in the shop was amazed that somebody wanted it and it changed hands for a small sum. At home the next job was to add legs to it, make the top lid hinge, lower the shelf inside, and make a ventilated front and back.

With both of the following weekends, Saturdays and Sundays, open to the Public, there was a lot to do. Zest Catering are offering meals and they had asked for a large quantity of fresh meal to make rolls out of. I also wanted to finish the woodwork of the lifting beams.

During the preceding week, I’d delivered the new support assembly and offered it up, just to check my measurements…. It fitted! Simon Smith, who has been advising me on the joinery, said the special joint I copied from him on the diagonals is called a ‘Bird’s Mouth Joint’ and it has been around for a long time! 

Stephen Sokolic offered to help with the Milling for both days of the first weekend, and also said he had an angle-drive for an electric drill. So together, we marked out and drilled and fitted the cross-over bracket between the ‘legs’ of the lifting beams:

A steel spacer will have to be fitted between the steel bars where they nearly come together, and then they must be clamped, removed, welded and refitted.