Re: rod-mill project - "mains" electric motor advice

"Richard Smith"  wrote in message news:m1v7otjupo.fsf@void.com...
It's our local scene here in West Cornwall - interest in geology, mining
and minerals.
All are joint endeavours
Projects have been going from strength to strength.
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Congratulations.
This may be of interest, it's an early description of manual mining methods that didn't change much until mechanical power became available. The translator was a mining engineer before becoming US President.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38015/38015-h/38015-h.htm
On assaying techniques:
"Those familiar with the art will be astonished at the small progress made since his time, for in his pages appear most of the reagents and most of the critical operations in the dry analyses of gold, silver, lead, copper, tin, bismuth, quicksilver, and iron of to-day."
Knowing Latin, German and Chemistry helps a little but isn't essential. The modern dry assaying texts I suggested along with blowpipe analysis are more useful and easier to follow.
I've made similar wooden machinery with a water wheel driving peg and lantern wheel gears. That made me appreciate modern machine tools. It was a symbolic protest art project that appeared to meter bleach into the smelly stream that ran across the college campus. It ran under and offended the biology building where they investigated the cause and discovered algal eutrophication from fertilizer runoff from the school's agricultural field.