Otterton Mill - gear teeth
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Otterton Mill - gear teeth by Chris Allen as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Otterton Mill - gear teeth
Image: © Chris Allen Taken: 12 Feb 2011
This is a detail of the crown wheel. It is a cast iron wheel with wooden teeth. The woods favoured were apple or hornbeam. The teeth are inserted from above and secured by pins through their tails (visible below the wheel). The use of wooden teeth, often running against iron teeth, resulted in quiet running and allowed for a less catastrophic failure if something jammed. To even out wear it was common to run an odd number of teeth on one wheel against an even number on the other - the supernumerary being called the hunting tooth.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
50.659538
Longitude
-3.303377