Grassroots engineering demo a highlight at Geloftedag commemoration

Basil Mills doesn’t just talk about boer and settler culture: he brings it to life. From battle re-enactments with his SABRE crew (including real fire from historic cannons) to the art of crossing a river or how to yoke up an ox to pull a wagon, he cuts straight through to the practicalities of the matter. It’s the talented artist and craftsperson’s love for grassroots engineering and local history that saw him giving a demonstration at the Great Trek annual commemoration, at the Karel Landman Monument near Alexandria on Saturday December 16.

Mills and his crew demonstrated wheel-shodding – putting a metal rim around a wooden wagon wheel. Mills and his team carried out the living exhibition under the banner of the Bathurst Agricultural Museum (BAM) and in partnership with fellow adventurer and BAM stalwart Jon Pieters.

Pieters’s project was an amazing odyssey from Bathurst to the Karel Landman monument near Alexandria. His plan was to travel in a hand-built wagon, drawn by a mule. For the story of that adventure, together with some inspiring images, visit the website of photographer and storyteller Neville Lance: https://www.nevillelance.com/jonpietersodyssey

Mills explained what he and his crew would be doing. Read his explanation below, and then enjoy some photographs of the SABRE (South African Battle Re-enactment) crew demonstrating some black powder skills and weaponry, including firing a Napoleonic period half pounder muzzle loader black powder cannon, at the December 16 event. Here you go:

The forgotten art of shodding a wagon wheel – by Basil Mills

It is very unusual and rare to be able to witness the old village wheelwright craft tradition of fitting an iron tyre band onto a wagon wheel. This craft has almost disappeared without trace.

We are proud to be able to show the youth the skill and knowledge of this old craft which is passed down by apprenticeship.

In bygone days all the wheels were hand made. The wood was handsawn in sawpits, chalked and the wood was seasoned for up to a year.

We as Bathurst Agricultural Museum volunteers will be demonstrating the parts of the wagon wheel and how the iron tyre rim is to be fitted first by using a traveller.

A large circular fire is made, heating  the iron tyre rim in the fire until dull red.  The master wheelwrights are Basil Mills and  Jon Peters and with the help of journeymen (three strong chosen and trained young men )  lift the tyre with tyre dog tongs and drop it on the wagon wheel rim before hammering it down with sledge hammers.

There is lots of smoke as hot iron burns wood. Once the iron tyre is connected into place the journeymen then walk around the hot tyre using watering cans of water to quench the iron tyre rim. Then buckets of water are poured over the hot tyre and the steam will replace the smoke. As the iron band cools and shrinks sharply and tightly the wheel is revolved to be cooled in a bath of water.

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