This shows the diversity of things I was called upon to make,even while musical instrument maker. My director had seen a press and cider mill just like this one in Somerset,England,from the 18th.C.
First,these bad pictures are the only pictures I have. I can't remember how I got them,but someone took these with a digital camera,and printed them on typing paper.The press is large enough that a 6' man standing in front of it would come up to the hole in the screw's bulbous part,where a log is inserted to tighten the screw,with a team of men.The screw is 12" in diameter.The bulb is 16" dia..The squared off log at the top was 40" in dia. before squaring. It is 16" thick.
I had been asked to figure out how to make this press,which weighs a lot,over a period of a couple of years. Finally the boss got serious,and I accepted this challenge. I must admit,it was difficult at first to go from doing precision musical instrument work,to doing something as large and crude as this.These special assignments led me into being begged to be toolmaker in 1986. This project was in 1983.
The biggest problem was how do you thread the hole? I finally worked that out.Threading the screw was second. Each thread is 2" wide,and 2" tall. 90 degree angle,as is correct for wood threads.
I am going to leave you to figure out how I made the screw and nut for a while. I will explain how after a while.
How to find a dry log for the screw was next. No one keeps logs till they are dry these days. Back then,they set wood aside for future generations. I could not find a dry log,so I reasoned that logs always split wide open when dry was that the center had no place to go as the outer perimeter shrank ever tighter. So,I drilled a 2" hole through the length of the screw. It worked. The screw never split.
As you see it here,it had been out in the weather several years,and is looking authentic.The screw looks newer because I completely saturated the screw with molten beeswax after it was made,forcing the screw to dry from inside the 2" axial hole.
Getting the nut to never shrink more than the screw,and permanently bind it was next. I found a 40" dia. log that was old and gray in a country sawmill. I figured that the screw was green,so the partly dry nut would never "catch up" with the shrinking screw and bind it. This theory also worked. If the nut ever bound on the screw,you'd never get it loose,and would have to cut it off and chisel it out.
The log was so old that the bark had fallen off it.It was sold to me as oak,but turned out to be hickory,bad luck. I had to chainsaw the nut flat on one side to get it small enough to have the other 2 flat sides cut at a sawmill.I have back trouble,and this was very painful work. That fairly dry hickory felt like iron,trying to rip a 12' length of it. OF COURSE,the log turned out to have been the corner post of a barbed wire fence when it was small.That really added to the problem,and was why the sawmill never cut the log. The gnarly front of the log was left that way,because it looked very much like the original press I was trying to copy.
The housewrights worked on the frame after I got the screw and nut made,but I went over all the surfaces by hand with a lipped adze to remove the saw cuts. There is a great big dovetail at the bottom of the press,securing the vertical members to the base,Which I cut,if you can make it out.
My hat gives an idea of the size of the press in the black and white photo.The cider mill next to the press has a 6 foot flywheel. I made that all by myself.It ground up the cider apples into a coarse mush. Then,this mush was put into a big horsehair bag,and squeezed.The woven horsehair bag looked just like the cheap woven nylon car seatcovers you could buy for your car in the 50's and 60's,except it was black. There are 2 big rollers seen in the end view. 2 smaller rollers with big iron teeth started chewing up the apples above the 2 rollers.
Cider was very important in the 18th.C. They grew 3 dozen types of cider apples at Carter's Grove plantation,near Williamsburg in the 18th.C.. Cider could be drunk as a soft drink,or left to ferment into potent hard cider.
The outcome of this very expensive project was that the director got fired a few years later.Since it was his pet project,no one else took up the project. They never found a place to permanently erect the cider press. It ended up in the warehouse,where it has been for several years. They are considering giving it to Mount Vernon. I think it is a serious omission of a major 18th.C..industry. Nearly everyone had a large cask of cider in their basement in those days. The older houses in England usually have some of the 2 posts that are under the cellar door hewn away partly. This is because the size of cider casks was increased some time in the 17th.C..,IIRC.. So,every old house has these timbers hewn to admit the new larger cask.
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