HOW A WINDMILL WORKS / HISTORIC GERMAN FILM 73562

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Directed by Karl Schneider, this beautiful historic German silent film shows how a windmill operates to separate grain from wheat. The movie was produced for schools in the 1930s. It's an elegant, poetic little movie of a time gone by...
A windmill is a mill that converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Centuries ago, windmills usually were used to mill grain, pump water, or both. Thus they often were gristmills, windpumps, or both. The majority of modern windmills take the form of wind turbines used to generate electricity, or windpumps used to pump water, either for land drainage or to extract groundwater.
Common sails consist of a lattice framework on which a sailcloth is spread. The miller can adjust the amount of cloth spread according to the amount of wind available and power needed. In medieval mills, the sailcloth was wound in and out of a ladder type arrangement of sails. Postmedieval mill sails had a lattice framework over which the sailcloth was spread, while in colder climates, the cloth was replaced by wooden slats, which were easier to handle in freezing conditions.[22] The jib sail is commonly found in Mediterranean countries, and consists of a simple triangle of cloth wound round a spar.
In all cases, the mill needs to be stopped to adjust the sails. Inventions in Great Britain in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to sails that automatically adjust to the wind speed without the need for the miller to intervene, culminating in patent sails invented by William Cubitt in 1813. In these sails, the cloth is replaced by a mechanism of connected shutters.
In France, Pierre-Théophile Berton invented a system consisting of longitudinal wooden slats connected by a mechanism that lets the miller open them while the mill is turning. In the twentieth century, increased knowledge of aerodynamics from the development of the airplane led to further improvements in efficiency by German engineer Bilau and several Dutch millwrights.
The majority of windmills have four sails. Multiple-sailed mills, with five, six or eight sails, were built in Great Britain (especially in and around the counties of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire), Germany, and less commonly elsewhere. Earlier multiple-sailed mills are found in Spain, Portugal, Greece, parts of Romania, Bulgaria, and Russia.[23] A mill with an even number of sails has the advantage of being able to run with a damaged sail and the one opposite removed without resulting in an unbalanced mill.
Gears inside a windmill convey power from the rotary motion of the sails to a mechanical device. The sails are carried on the horizontal windshaft. Windshafts can be wholly made of wood, or wood with a cast iron poll end (where the sails are mounted) or entirely of cast iron. The brake wheel is fitted onto the windshaft between the front and rear bearing. It has the brake around the outside of the rim and teeth in the side of the rim which drive the horizontal gearwheel called wallower on the top end of the vertical upright shaft. In grist mills, the great spur wheel, lower down the upright shaft, drives one or more stone nuts on the shafts driving each millstone. Post mills sometimes have a head and/or tail wheel driving the stone nuts directly, instead of the spur gear arrangement. Additional gear wheels drive a sack hoist or other machinery. The machinery differs if the windmill is used for other applications than milling grain. A drainage mill uses another set of gear wheels on the bottom end of the upright shaft to drive a scoop wheel or Archimedes' screw. Sawmills use a crankshaft to provide a reciprocating motion to the saws. Windmills have been used to power many other industrial processes, including papermills, threshing mills, and to process oil seeds, wool, paints and stone products.
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[@deezynar]

The first 7 minutes just show a farmer taking his grain to the mill. If you're only interested in the mill's operation, you can skip that part.

[@ramblingrob4693]

How peaceful it looked

[@ramblingrob4693]

Interesting to see a Post Mill... whether it's Dutch German or UK they all work more or less the same way.

[@montysmith6355]

looks like the mill that Frankenstine,s monster was killed in .

[@cordeliablakeslee7964]

You can learn more about it on woodprix website I think.

[@20alphabet]

You may or may not believe this, but the mill was actually wind-operated. Also, it was an extremely inefficient and unpredictable source of power... as those proponents of wind power are learning. Sailing vessels of yore often drifted off course for days until the wind was willing to accommodate them continuing on their voyage.

[@deezynar]

The title of the video says WINDmill. I think everyone is aware that they are powered by the wind. The rest of your comment is pretty true, however.

[@20alphabet]

deezynar
Let me clarify my intent. The REASON it's obsolete is BECAUSE of the hoped for power source.

[@deezynar]

20alphabet
You are incorrect. These mills were built by intelligent people who calculated the cost to build, and the irregular power supply, and decided it would be profitable at the time. The reason people are no longer building them is because of the low price and constant supply of utility supplied electricity make wind powered mills uncompetitive today.

[@ProLepanto]

Seriously you had to exclaim this? It is called a Windmill , In addition to the "wind " dependency ,which was fairly consistent, humidity was a factor to count in. But there was always something else to do until conditions were right . My grand father born in Russia in 1888, ,family used one.

[@jeffreycunningtown5730]

I made it with Woodglut plans!