george wilson
02-14-2012, 8:00 PM
I found these pictures of the apple mill,which I built to go with the cider press. It was made after the apple mill that my director also saw at Somerset,England.
This was my second and last project into agricultural machinery,thank Heaven! The finished mill is seen in 1 picture,with the flywheel and crank handle all fitted up and ready to go. The flywheel is similar to the wheel on a great wheel lathe. It is about 6' in diameter. There is a 1/2" thick iron tire fitted to add inertia to it. The wheel was made by the Wheelwright's shop.
All of the wood in this mill is white oak. I can't recall what wood the log used to make the rollers was.
A lot of iron work is found on this mill,and it was made by the Anderson Blacksmith shop in the Historic area.
A hopper sits atop the machine to hold a couple of bushels of cider apples. Beneath the hopper is a sliding panel so the apples could be loaded without them falling into the toothed rollers. It is also possible that the flow of apples could be controlled by only partially sliding open the panel.
Underneath the mill is seen a rectangular receptacle to catch the mashed and crushed apples,which after going through the mill,would have resembled a very coarse apple sauce. This mash was shoveled into horse hair bags on the cider mill,ready to be squeezed.At least,that's the way the coopers used the press. The master cooper was a bit of a brewer also,so he took charge of the demonstration of the press to the Early American Industries Ass'n. when they visited one year.
There are 2 rollers seen just below where the sliding panel would have covered them. They have iron teeth that looked like playing card diamonds about 1 1/4" tall. On their bottom ends were barbed,tapered square shanks which I had to mortise to fit each tooth. Once in,those barbs would not let them back out. They were 1/4" thick,and made by the blacksmith's shop.
Beneath the toothed top rollers are 2 large rollers,about 16" in diameter. These were plain surfaced,and set about 1/4" apart,to further crush the chewed up apples after they passed through the toothed rollers.
I just realized that though I made all the wooden parts except the large wheel,I have no recollection of how I turned these rollers,or how I bored out the holes for their axles. The only large wood lathe we had at that time was a big old pattern maker's lathe in the Millwork Shop. I must have turned them and bored them there.
There are 6 gears that I got the machine shop to make while I was making the big screw and nut. You can see 2 large gears behind the great wheel. It geared the top rollers and the bottom rollers. The 2 top rollers have gears a little larger in diameter than they were. The large gears beside the bottom rollers were over 16" in diameter,you can make out 1 gear's edge in the 3rd picture,beside the large roller. They had spokes that were "T" shaped in cross section. At the time this project was made,I was still the musical Instrument maker,with a 10" lathe and small milling machine(a mill drill) at home. There was no way for me to make these large gears,nor did I want to be away from my shop and my staff for too extended a period.
This mill would have been a very expensive machine in the 18th.C.,especially with those large gears. They would have been custom made from the patterns to the hand filed teeth. They could have cast those large gear teeth,but would have had to clean up the teeth and file the taper out of them. Tapered so that the patterns would come out of the sand.
All of the wood in this mill was hand planed after being power planed. The mortises were hand cut and cross pinned. There were quite a few mortice and tenon joints in the mill. Note also,the long bolt holding the top part of the mill together in case the pressure of crushing the hard little cider apples was too much for the wooden joints. The original had these rods also.
You can make out the flat shovel I made to scoop out the apples. The handle is sticking up out of the mash container beneath the mill.
I really did need a dry log to make the rollers out of,and the gunsmith's shop kindly let me have one of their old,dry vise stumps,which I replaced with a new,wet log.
Not my favorite kind of work,but it shows some of the variety of work that I had to do,from the finely polished,to the coarse.
This was my second and last project into agricultural machinery,thank Heaven! The finished mill is seen in 1 picture,with the flywheel and crank handle all fitted up and ready to go. The flywheel is similar to the wheel on a great wheel lathe. It is about 6' in diameter. There is a 1/2" thick iron tire fitted to add inertia to it. The wheel was made by the Wheelwright's shop.
All of the wood in this mill is white oak. I can't recall what wood the log used to make the rollers was.
A lot of iron work is found on this mill,and it was made by the Anderson Blacksmith shop in the Historic area.
A hopper sits atop the machine to hold a couple of bushels of cider apples. Beneath the hopper is a sliding panel so the apples could be loaded without them falling into the toothed rollers. It is also possible that the flow of apples could be controlled by only partially sliding open the panel.
Underneath the mill is seen a rectangular receptacle to catch the mashed and crushed apples,which after going through the mill,would have resembled a very coarse apple sauce. This mash was shoveled into horse hair bags on the cider mill,ready to be squeezed.At least,that's the way the coopers used the press. The master cooper was a bit of a brewer also,so he took charge of the demonstration of the press to the Early American Industries Ass'n. when they visited one year.
There are 2 rollers seen just below where the sliding panel would have covered them. They have iron teeth that looked like playing card diamonds about 1 1/4" tall. On their bottom ends were barbed,tapered square shanks which I had to mortise to fit each tooth. Once in,those barbs would not let them back out. They were 1/4" thick,and made by the blacksmith's shop.
Beneath the toothed top rollers are 2 large rollers,about 16" in diameter. These were plain surfaced,and set about 1/4" apart,to further crush the chewed up apples after they passed through the toothed rollers.
I just realized that though I made all the wooden parts except the large wheel,I have no recollection of how I turned these rollers,or how I bored out the holes for their axles. The only large wood lathe we had at that time was a big old pattern maker's lathe in the Millwork Shop. I must have turned them and bored them there.
There are 6 gears that I got the machine shop to make while I was making the big screw and nut. You can see 2 large gears behind the great wheel. It geared the top rollers and the bottom rollers. The 2 top rollers have gears a little larger in diameter than they were. The large gears beside the bottom rollers were over 16" in diameter,you can make out 1 gear's edge in the 3rd picture,beside the large roller. They had spokes that were "T" shaped in cross section. At the time this project was made,I was still the musical Instrument maker,with a 10" lathe and small milling machine(a mill drill) at home. There was no way for me to make these large gears,nor did I want to be away from my shop and my staff for too extended a period.
This mill would have been a very expensive machine in the 18th.C.,especially with those large gears. They would have been custom made from the patterns to the hand filed teeth. They could have cast those large gear teeth,but would have had to clean up the teeth and file the taper out of them. Tapered so that the patterns would come out of the sand.
All of the wood in this mill was hand planed after being power planed. The mortises were hand cut and cross pinned. There were quite a few mortice and tenon joints in the mill. Note also,the long bolt holding the top part of the mill together in case the pressure of crushing the hard little cider apples was too much for the wooden joints. The original had these rods also.
You can make out the flat shovel I made to scoop out the apples. The handle is sticking up out of the mash container beneath the mill.
I really did need a dry log to make the rollers out of,and the gunsmith's shop kindly let me have one of their old,dry vise stumps,which I replaced with a new,wet log.
Not my favorite kind of work,but it shows some of the variety of work that I had to do,from the finely polished,to the coarse.