A-Z glossary

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Gable
(1) Triangular or "A" frame with a plumb-line used to check that a stone is level. (2) The triangular upper part of a wall at the end of a ridged roof.

Gable Cap
West country shape of cap.

Gable Rope
(1) a rope to the gable sack hoist barrel on a medieval post mill. (2) a wire rope from the gable plate of a post mill to support the tail pole.

Gallery
Guarded platform around the cap of a smock or tower mill.

Gambrel Roof
See Mansard Roof.

Gang Water
Water collected from a stream but not collected in a GATHER DAM for driving a waterwheel (Scot.).

Garner
See Bin.

Garner
A storehouse for grain etc.

Garner Floor
See Bin Floor.

Gas Engine
An internal combustion engine, used for powering a mill in the absence of natural power, using gas as a fuel. May use town gas or PRODUCER GAS.

Gate
(1) GRAIN: A slide sometimes used to control the flow of grain, from the SHOE to the stones or meal from a CHUTE, HOPPER to a bin or sack. (2) WATER: A term used loosely for a SLUICE or PENSTOCK. See SLUICE.

Gather Dam
A dam which collects water from subsoil drainage, from rain and from minor streams.

Gavelock
See Crowbar.

Gear
See Gear Wheel.

Gear Floor
See Dust Floor.

Gear Ratio
Contrast between speeds of two shafts when connected by gear or belt drive. e.g. driver wheel with 56 cogs and driver pinion with 12 rungs equal ratio of 14:3.

Gear Wheel
A WHEEL from which project a number of COGS or TEETH for engagement with another gear wheel for transmitting motion or power from one SHAFT to another. see also SPUR WHEEL, WALLOWER, STONE NUT, BEVEL GEARS, MITRE WHEELS, TRAM WHEELS, TEETH and WHEEL.

Geared Ring
See Ring Gear.

Gelatine
A nitrogenous constituent of skin, bones and hooves of animals, used as a SIZE.

Getting Up
The wearing away of the harder BURRS in the EYE of a French stone.

Gig Mill
A machine with a rotary drum covered with teasel heads, used for raising the nap on woollen cloth.

Gimbal
A device for mounting a RUNNER STONE on its spindle allowing the stone to turn with its face parallel to that of the bedstone; it replaced the STIFF RHYND for most purposes, but was less popular than the BALANCE RHYND (prone to wear at the pivot points).

Gimbal Bar
(1) see RHYND. (2) see BRIDGE.

Gimble
See Gimbal.

Gimmer
A hinge (C17 Hants)

Gin
(1) A machine by which gears may operate machinery, operated by animals walking round in a circle. (2) An abbreviations for `engine'.

Girder
Term for a heavy horizontal floor beam, noteworthy in a smock mill.

Girdle
See Collar.

Girnal
a granary (Scot.).

Girts
Small GIRDER See SIDE GIRTS.

Glaze
The gloss or polish on a sheet of paper.

Glazing
Process of applying a final polish to corned grains of black powder by tumbling them in black-lead or graphite.

Gleaning
(1) Gathering ears of corn from the field, left by the reapers. (2) The trade of grinding same.

Gloom Stove
Old type of drying facility where warm air came from a convex metal wall-plate directly heated by an external fire.

Glossing
See Glazing.

Glumes
The shells of the oat grain, removed by SHELLING (Scot.).

Glutbox
Top bearing of the QUANT, which can be opened to disengage the stone nut.

Gluten
A nitrogenous part of the flour remaining as a sticky substance if the starch is washed out.

Gluts
Wooden wedges used as a bearing for the stone spindle where it passes through the bedstone (N.Yks.).

Goit
Leat (West Riding and Derbyshire term. - a large leat to an industrial mill). See MILL RACE.

Gorging
Excessive supply of Grain to the STONES, causing production of course meal or even the stopping of the mill.

Government Powder
Black-powder produced to meet exacting Government specifications as to ballistics, strength and burning speed.

Governor
(1) A regulator, generally of the centrifugal type, which detects the speed of the machinery and, in corn mills, is commonly used to apply its output to automatically adjust the tentering of millstones for the purpose of maintaining a constant quality of product despite the changes of speed that might occur. A development of the CONICAL PENDULUM. (2) Governors have been used to control the shutters and therefore the speed of the windmill sails, and similarly to control the water flow to and hence the speed of a waterwheel. They have also been applied to American windmills to control the angle of the blades, or power from steam engines.

Goyt
LEAT (north of England term).

Grading
The separation of products into fractions of different-sized particles.

Gradual Reduction
The production of flour by multiple grinding See HIGH MILLING.

Graffels
See Grappling Irons.

Graft Shaft
An upright shaft which comprises both iron & wood.

Grain
The small hard seed, especially the seed on one of the food plants wheat, corn, rye, oats, rice and millet etc.

Grain Bin
See Bin.

Grain Cleaner
A machine for removing foreign material seeds etc. from grain before grinding it. See WINNOWER. See SMUTTER.

Grain Floor
Sometimes, an additional floor in tower and smock mills below the meal floor where sacks of unground grain are stored

Grain Hopper
See Hopper.

Graith
The buildings (LYING GRAITH) & machinery (GOING or RUNNING GRAITH) of a mill (Scot.).

Granary
The outbuilding or storehouse for unground grain; usually stored in sacks.

Granary Floor
See Bin Floor.

Grapples
See Grappling Irons.

Grappling Irons
A set of four 'follow round' eye bolts designed to grip a large-section timber which is under strain (e.g. around the mortises at the front of a wooden windshaft).

Grease Wedge
The removable portion of the bearing round the neck of a stone spindle; so that grease lubricants may be applied.

Great Spur Wheel
Main driving wheel mounted on the upright shaft, transmitting drive to the stones via STONE NUTS. May also provide drive for ancillary machinery. See OVERDRIFT, UNDERDRIFT &

Grey Stone
See Peak Stone.

Greys
A class of flour containing impurities.

Grinder
The machine used to prepare mechanical wood PULP, consisting of a revolving grindstone against which the logs are pressed to disintegrate them.

Grinding Floor
SPOUT or MEAL FLOOR.

Grinding Hull
See Hull.

Grinding Pan
(1) Used for grinding CALCINED FLINT. An open top shallow pan, with a CHERT-lined bottom. Flint is ground by lumps of chert being pushed round the pan in water by the SWEEP ARMS. Different grades of ground flint are obtained by settlement through water. (2) A cast-iron housing for EDGE RUNNER (found in some flint and gunpowder mills).

Grindings
A general term used to describe the product of a millstone.

Grindstone
A thick revolving stone disc for grinding, sharpening and polishing.

Gripe
See Brake.

Gripe Driven
See Overdrift.

Gripe Irons
Large U-bolts with nuts and plates which encircle the STOCK, WHIPS and specially-made flanges on the CANISTER. This system is used instead of wedges to secure stocks in East Kent.

Gripe Staff
See Brake Lever.

Griped Arm
Norfolk term for a CLASP ARM.

Grist
(1) Material ground in the mill; latterly applied principally to animal feeding stuffs. (2) Term applied in roller flour milling for a mixture of same or different GRAINS. See BLENDING. (3) To dress millstones (Scot.).

Grist Mill
A MILL to grind animal foods. (modern use). One in which the grain is crushed but not finely ground to flour (older term for a flour mill).

Grit
The kernels of oats when the shells are removed.

Grits
See Peak Stone.

Groat Machine
A form of Winnower designed to separate OAT HUSKS from the KERNELS after SHELLING. See GROATS.

Groats
Husked oats. The groat is the KERNEL of the OAT grain. See GRAIN(2).

Grop
Coarse grinding of corn (Scot.).

Grot, Groot, Grud
Stone suitable for making MILLSTONES.

Grotti
A wooden bush inserted in the bedstone of the Horizontal mill to receive the upper end of the vertical spindle. (Scot.).

Grough
Incompletely purified saltpetre or sulphur.

Ground Sile
The bearing which supports the spindle of a horizontal waterwheel (Scot.).

Ground Sills
Foundation timbers which carry the water-mill superstructure (C17 Hants).

Ground Wood
PULP produced by grinding wood.

Grubbe
European-style pearl barley stones, set horizontally, usually below a floor.

Grutte
The NECK BEARING of the bedstone (Scot.).

Gryst
A weeks' allowance of flour for the family. Anglo-Saxon term for grinding (old Sussex term).

Gudgeon
An iron assembly forming the BEARING for a wooden shaft and connecting the pintle to the shaft. The JOURNAL is often provided with wings to secure it to the end of a wooden SHAFT. See CROSS TAILED GUDGEON. Metal pivot let into end of a beam on which a wheel turns

Guide Blades
(1) A series of blades arranged to direct water onto the runner of a turbine, they are curved in the opposite direction to the runner blades. (2) May be used for directing water onto a WATERWHEEL.

Guillotine Hatch
See Hatch.

Gunpowder Mill
One at which blackpowder is prepared, using edge-runner stones for crushing and incorporating.

Gussets
Triangular webs to strengthen a structure.

Guy Tree (2)
See Cross Tree.

Gymbal
See Gimbal.