Industry > Mills

Windmill sweeps

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MartinR:
Windmill sweeps may appear to go around anti-clockwise from one point of view (the "front"), but from elsewhere, particularly inside the mill, they are going clockwise.
Just speculating, but if the sweeps go clockwise (viewed from within the mill), the brake wheel is of course going CW so the wallower will be going ACW (viewed from above).  Therefore the great spur wheel will be doing ACW, and so the stone nuts will be going CW.  There is usually a preference for the stones to rotate CW, if they went widdershins the flour would be of bad quality!  More prosaically, the stones were "bought in" and I'm guessing would always be cut for CW milling.  All suposition of course!

grandarog:
I have also made 2 Windmills.Both with fixed Cowls.
The first was in our previous back garden .When we moved I left it for the new owners as they loved it.
The second I built here on our front lawn.
I have never had any trouble with sweeps coming adrift.
They were mounted on one end of a Bicycle wheel hub.
I also built 2 Water Mills but that's off topic.

Smiffy:
Have you got any photo's of them we can look at?

castle261:
I have made two windmills, one Tower, one Post -- the Post one I tested in the garden, in a wind.
The sweeps/vanes flew round so fast, all the sweeps/vanes, came of as one. Mine was to do
with the screw thread in the centre, holding it on. -- Mine went anti clockwise. It un- screwed - itself.
Needed a --------- locking nut. -- Both windmills over three feet tall - to top of sweeps/vanes.

Smiffy:
Most windmills seem to be set so that their sweeps rotate anti-clockwise. Is there a specific reason for this, or is it just convention?

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