Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.

Wednesday Wind MILL blogging

by PeWi Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 04:13:13 PM EST

Apologies to everybody that thinks I am going to talk about windtubines, no,I came across this windmill and I thought that might amuse some people. And since I like strange buildings and unusual designs....

Not, that I can tell you much about them, but here is a special mill.

from the front page...whataboutbob


Yes, this windmill is in an actual Barn. And it did somehow work.

Its origin is in Podemus about 10km outside of Dresden. Johann Traugott Leberecht Schubert built this unique Mill in 1864.
Until 1914 the mill was being used as it had been originally intended. It was subsequently altered and was being used as a mill until 1957. As it became more and more dilapidated it was being dekonstructed in 1974. The individual parts were kept for later usage in a museum. This took place in 1992/1993 statt.   The still existing technique was put into a new building.

more here

and some people really have to much time, (which I admire...) here are some more mills So, what is your favourite Windmill? P.S no, I am NOT going to make a series out of this...

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Thanks, PeWi -- that's really incredible.  It's good to see you again.  We were wondering where you were -- Jerome even posted a bridge blogging, but it wasn't the same (no offense Jerome!).

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
by Izzy (izzy at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 17th, 2006 at 10:23:18 PM EST
Thanks for the kind words Izzy, I have been lurking mostly, blogging steals so much time - and can create dependencies, and I do have two jobs, and a family and a degree to do, and the tax man is coming in a week...

Maybe I should set up a Blogger Anonymous....

I tried to go cold turkey, but then when I finally got away from the computer, they had finished the Christmas dinner...

by PeWi on Tue Jan 17th, 2006 at 10:29:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh, wow -- can't argue with that!  Glad everything's okay, though!!

The tax man in January seems a bit harsh right after the holidays.  At least ours isn't until mid-April.  It's always sort of a freak-out at our house.  Every year I get that Kinks' song, Sunny Afternoon, stuck in my head.  Do you know it?

...save me, save me, save me from this squeee-eeeze...

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

by Izzy (izzy at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 17th, 2006 at 10:42:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It is the British tax man, if you are self employed as I am (partly), you have to hand in your tax return by the end of January, and as a last minute person, I do it very last second.

I did know the the Kinks songs, but never really listened to it, with the tax man and so.

"Ice cooled beer", sigh, where is the summer, "help me sail away..."

by PeWi on Tue Jan 17th, 2006 at 10:48:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, I've never encountered a wind mill, so I'll have to go with "unusual buildings and strange architecture."  Here's the skinny house.  

I lived right around the corner from it when I was a kid, and it always fascinated me.  Someone has put stucco on it since then and added that front wall and something on the back, so it doesn't look as cool, in my opinion.  It's 10 feet wide and, according to this website, the skinniest house in the nation.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

by Izzy (izzy at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 17th, 2006 at 11:27:27 PM EST
That is mighty thin! I know some time ago in Britain you were taxed for the number of windows you had, and at another time, how wide the building was, but that is seriously narrow!
by PeWi on Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 11:52:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This is Brixton Windmill in south London. Not particularly special as far as windmills go but it is the closest to central London. Sadly although the sails have been restored, it is in a delapidated state. It has suffered from on/off restoration and the gardens it sits in are a bit neglected. The gardens were formerly the mill yard. It is used for open air music events and the Friends are trying to get the building restored and re-opened to the public.

by Londonbear on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 06:13:52 AM EST
The windmill on Wimbledon Common is unusual in that it has an octagonal brick base which housed the machinery with a conical tower for the sails on top of that. It is now a museum about windmills!. It holds this model cut-away to show how it worked.

This is a picture rather spoilt by the surrounding trees and a far better picture and history can be seen here

This page on the WindmillWorld web site lists other windmills and windpumps in London.

by Londonbear on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 06:33:59 AM EST
PeWi is BACK...with a vengence! Jousting at windmills, yet (and taxmen...).

Thanks!!

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

by whataboutbob on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 08:01:37 AM EST
Thanks for the kind words Bob.
by PeWi on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 10:10:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
If you're not restricting it to windmills, there are lots of pictures at http://www.millfoto.com

Here's one of the ARGO mill in Idaho Springs, Colorado. Not wind powered, but operational until the 1940s...

by asdf on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 09:02:21 AM EST
Prussia's most famous windmill stands right next to the royal castle in park Sanssouci in Potsdam. It became wellknown because of a quarrel between king Frederic the Great and the windmill owner.

The king who had, over time, become very annoyed with the continuous noise of the mill wanted to offer the owner a fair price for the mill and then demolish it.

When the owner refused the deal the king asked: "Doesn't he know that I am powerfull enough to evict him and to demolish the mill without giving him a penny for it?"

Upon which the mill owner answered: "This might be true of course, if it was not for the fact that there is a jugde in Berlin."

At which point the king refrained from further pursuing the affair and accepted its existence.



"The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819

by Ritter on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 12:05:26 PM EST
I love that one too, friends of my brothers is restorer there, and I have meant to vist them for a long time...

Well, one of these days.

by PeWi on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 12:18:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for the great post, but I still cannot understand how the windmill at the top of the post is supposed to work. I've looked at it for a few minutes...how much wind can even get in that little door?
by gradinski chai on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 12:28:33 PM EST
.
I made a bit of a smuuuh here. The wind wheel you can see on the image I used is the support wheel for the main one, which is at right angle.

As you can see on this image I included, there are big flaps in front of the wind wheel which directs the wind onto it. When you go back to the original image, you can see two windows on the left wall of the building, those are the "exhaust" channels. Those exhaust channels are also on the right hand side of this second image (around the corner)
It has to be said, that the wind wheel is not in its original position, but I do understand it was restored to full working order.

I chose the original image, as I find it more aesthetically pleasing...


"In einer rechteckigen Grundform bilden auf einer Längswand des Gebäudes sechs Holzsäulen...mit den in halber Höhe befindlichen Riegeln die Lagerung des großen Windrades. Das vierflüglige Tor hängt an den beiden äußeren Wellenlagersäulen." Direkt hinter dem Tor ist das Gehäuse, in dem das Windrad läuft.                                                                                        "Auf der Windradwelle sitzen zwei Kammräder, am vorderen sind 24 Flügel verschraubt... Am hinteren Kammrad bremst bei Bedarf ein radiales Schleifholz, das mittels Spindel und Kettenantrieb vom Mühlraum (OG) bedient wird, den ganzen Mechanismus. Das Stockgetriebe (Ritzel, Mühleisen) des vorderen Kammrades führt ins Obergeschoss und treibt den Mahlgang (Läuferstein auf Bodenstein in Holzbütte), das Getriebe des hinteren Kammrades dient dem Beutelwerk (Mehlkasten, Stoffbeutel zur Sichtung des Mahlguts)."

"Außerdem ist noch ein zweites Windrad in der Giebelwand des Gebäudes hinter einem achteckigen Tor vorhanden, das ebenfalls Außen- und Innenlagerung sowie ein Kammrad hat und in einem geschlossenen Gehäuse sitzt. Der ursprüngliche Verwendungszweck dieses kleinen Windrades ist ungeklärt, da kein Mahlgang, kein Stockgetriebe dafür vorgesehen war, jedoch konnte der vom kleinen Windrad erzeugte Flügelwind durch einen Kanal dem großen Windrad zugeführt werden (Blattspitzenantrieb?). Heute wird mit der kleinen Windmühle ein Sackaufzug betrieben mit dem das Mahlgut außen über den verlängerten Firstbalken in den Mahlraum (OG) nach oben befördert wird."

"Die Mühlen werden in Betrieb genommen, indem die großen Torflügel für den einströmenden Wind geöffnet werden, der auf der jeweiligen gegenüberliegenden Seite durch zwei Öffnungen bzw. durch die Einfahrt des Nebengebäudes den Innenraum wieder verlassen kann."

If you want I could translate it...

from here

by PeWi on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 01:00:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
No need to translate. A friend translated the basic idea for me. Thanks. Maybe this house of the past is the house of the future as well?
by gradinski chai on Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 06:34:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
to the extend that it provides selfsufficiency, possibly, otherwise I think, it is probably to drafty down there...
by PeWi on Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 11:50:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh I am sure, that it is not the most wind that goes in there, but then, it must have been sufficient to turn the millstone. Thats all you need it for, (apart from using the power to lift the corn up to the funnel)
by PeWi on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 01:04:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Batavia, IL, just west of Chicago, has many windmills.  It was nicknamed `The Windmill City', because of its industrial role at the turn of the century as "the windmill manufacturing capital of the world."



Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

by p------- on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 01:20:43 PM EST

The windmill of Békéssámson now exhibited in a museum near Békéscsaba, both Hungary. Windmills of the region had a not-even-near-vertical plane for some reason.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Wed Jan 18th, 2006 at 04:48:09 PM EST
Here's the Dutch windmill in Golden Gate park in SF...
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
by gioele (gioele(daught)sandler(aaaattttt)gmail(daught)kom) on Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 12:58:17 AM EST
woah great picture, Thank you!
by PeWi on Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 06:28:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
by gioele (gioele(daught)sandler(aaaattttt)gmail(daught)kom) on Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 11:20:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]
nope, it is not wider than 400px - for some strange reasons the blockquote, seem to blow up the layout, but your image is fine.
Thanks again
by PeWi on Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 11:46:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
And I'm really looking forward to "Beach Blogging"!!!

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia
by whataboutbob on Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 04:16:06 PM EST
not from me this year, my wife just this morning decided that we would not go to Faro/ Portugal for her birthday and lay on the beach but go to the thermal baths in Budapest.

So SAUNA blogging! (which we scratched on before, I seem to remember.)

Jo eiszakat everybody!

by PeWi on Thu Jan 19th, 2006 at 09:23:47 PM EST
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