Tuckwood Balanced Gear Power Mill 1888-Patent

[ottoengine]

I am a collector of Salesman Samples and have a number of Windmill Salesman Samples. This past year I bought a Salesman Sample 1888 Patent Date Tuckwood Balanced Gear Power Mill Salesman Sample. It was a complete wreck. I will try and post pictures. Since it dated to 1888-89 it was mainly wooden construction with the exception of small brass fasteners to attach all the wooden parts together. The main part of the head was complete. All of the metal parts were there except for 2 of the small parts that attached the outside slotted wooden pieces that held the blades. I poured new brass castings using an existing piece as a pattern.

There was enough left of the pieces that held the blades in place from the inner and outer circle so that I was able to duplicate them.. All of those pieces were destroyed beyond use. ALL the blades were missing except for fragments of 3 of the blades so I was able to determine the angle that they were cut. However since none were complete blades I had to guess at the length so decided on using 5.5 inch blade length since it looked the best after trying several different blade lengths. There are a total of 80 blades - 8 sections each holding 10 blades.

After making the new pieces that held the blades for the inner and outer circle each piece needed to have the 10 slots cut at the correct angle so that it would fit together when assembled. A jig was built after calculating the precise angle of each blade and then all 160 slots were cut individually by hand. A few of the 8 pieces of the spider were broken and had to also be made. These were fastened using very small brass bolts and very small brass rivets; with some places where small square nuts were used. A few of these small brass square nuts I had to make since they were missing.

After the complete blade was constructed and re-constructed; I then made a tower to hold the head. There was no parts of the tower left so I completely made it from scratch so that it would look vintage correct. The first tower I constructed I was not happy with so using the knowledge I gained from building the first tower; i made a second tower that I was happy with and looked correct and suitable.

I am now to the place where I need to construct two tails. I have a poor artist conception of the head which shows the two tails. There is NO tail attaching hardware that came with this project. I AM DESPERATELY WANTING TO ATTACH THE TWO TAILS CORRECTLY AND AM WONDERING IF ANYONE IN THE VINTAGE WINDMILL HOBBY HAS ANY BETTER PICTURES OF PERHAPS A FULL SIZE ONE SOMEWHERE THAT I COULD CORRESPOND WITH SO I KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO ATTACH THE TWO TAILS. PLEASE RESPOND WITH ANY INFO YOU MAY HAVE. IF YOU KNOW OF ANYONE WHO MIGHT HAVE SOME INFO PLEASE GET ME CONNECTED!!! Thank you from the Bottom of my Heart, Jerry Toews in Kansas

I have spent the past 3 months working on this project and would like to make it as authentic as possible. I built the tower 32 inches tall to the base of the head. The diameter of the blade is 18 inches. When I have completed the project I will age the wood so that it looks old with tobacco and oxalic acid. Wishing everyone well. I hope I can figure out how to attach pictures. Thank you, Jerry

[CTXmiller]

Welcome to the forum

[mtblah]

Jerry , glad to have you aboard the best windmill site . There are many great & wonderful "experianced " windmillers who willingly share their depth of knowledge . We have a guy who reproduces via 3D printer some of those old & odd open gear windmills BEAUTIFULLY ! He may be some help with details your looking for .
It appears you have lot of patience & serious skills in restoring this project ,
BTW , next month is the International Windmill Trade show in Pleasonton TX , just south of San Antonio , so if you want to get out of "winter " come on down & enjoy .
Mike B
New Braunfels TX

[Terry]

Welcome Jerry
I have been helping Jerry on this project. This mill looks a whole lot different that it did when Jerry got the mill.
Terry

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

Glad to have you on board Jerry you might already have this info !!

20260203_215422.jpg

[Linda Jacox]

Jerry, there was a Tuckwood tail on Ralph Wiebusch's sale. Don't know who bought it, and it did not have any hardware on it. I have a few photos I took which shows it in the background. Sorry they aren't any better, but thought they may help out a bit.

Tuckwood tail.pdf

[rockislandnut]

Have not found much on the internet for Tuckwood. Just not much information out there. Have attached what I have found to this point.

[rockislandnut]

Here is a photo of the tail from the Ralph Weibusch auction.

[rockislandnut]

If anyone is not familiar with this mill here a few photos from the ebay auction. Jerry if you need any help just let me know. My name is Darrin Jantz the 3d model guy. Terry has my number and I can 3d model the tail assembly based of the photos in my previous posts and get you some rough dimensions if you want.

[windybob]

That's awesome. Really cool.