Windmills and Baroque theatre technology visit 31 May 2015

Discussing the origins of the Baroque theatre machinery, we often look back at sailing ships etc.

Suddenly it dawned to me that in old windmills they also use a lot of wood, pulleys and ropes, and this as early as the 12^th century.

Photo by Hanneke van de Kerkhof

Yesterday we visited a few windmills and were amazed by the ingenuity of the machinery.

Using only wood and ropes the forces are distributed and multiplied so that the miller can work without using practically no physical force.

Photo by Hanneke van de Kerkhof

Although these machines date from centuries before the baroque theatre machineries, some similarities are obvious.

In the mills you have the advantage you can use the power of the wind for whatever you need: hoisting bags of corn, shaking oats, leading the flower into the bag, and of course moving the giant millstones.

Photo by Hanneke van de Kerkhof

Forces acting on the structure are much bigger than these in theatres, yet thousands of mills work every day in controlled and inspected circumstances.

Strangely enough these gears were very common for centuries in all kinds of machinery (mills, cranes) but hardly ever seen in theatre machinery.
Is this because they were not precise enough? I wonder.
The only example I found was that of the moving wings machinery at the opera of Dresen:

Inspection of the windmills is done by specialists civil servants, and special courses prepare the miller to work and maintain the incredible machinery.

Photo by Hanneke van de Kerkhof