Ben's Mill Transcript
- [Narrator] The Stevens River, Barnet, Vermont, once an important source of power for an isolated farm community in northern New England. Years ago, many mills lined the Stevens River. This one, now run by Ben Thresher, has served as a tannery, cider mill, wheelwright shop, and forge. A survivor, a symbol of an independent spirit.
- A man by the name of Alexander Jack came up here from Massachusetts and built it in 1848, where it was a dye shop. They dyed woolen cloth, made sheepskin rugs, feather dusters and so on. Of course, before this building was built, there was nothing but a saw mill till 1836 and how far before, I don't know.
- [Narrator] Mills like Ben's are a link between two ages. The age of craft, when the work of the world was done by hand, and the present industrial age. For a short period, the two lived together, and today, in Ben Thresher's mill, this balance survives.
- They didn't used to think much of it, they thought it was junk, now? I guess it's antique. It still serves a purpose in this neighborhood, I can tell you that. Working for all these farmers so they don't have to use haywire, they come here and get it fixed, whatever it is, it's pretty near everything. All right.
- And how are you this morning, Ben?
- Oh, pretty good.
- [Narrator] Ben's neighbor, Burns Goss, has an idea. He wants to adopt an old fork into a sod lifter. Burns, a farmer, also digs graves for the town, and the new tool will make the sod easier to handle.
- Half of it cut off?
- About two inches off the lot. Yeah, I could probably do that. You take the sod off the grain with that, then you lay 'em right back the same place they came, you keep track of 'em some way, when you pile 'em up then? Then take it right back just the same way? Now these wanna be straightened. Do you want it to be perfectly straight? Or do they go back to how we bend it?
- I believe I'd bend 'em first.
- Bend 'em first, then use the stick, okay.
- Then you'll see.
- [Ben] What do you say, Burns?
- [Burns] Melt that one first.
- Gonna widen them when I bend 'em in, then I'm gonna straighten 'em. Now we'll get the other two. Which one would you call right? This one probably.
- This one outta come out just a bit more than it is.
- You mean this way or that way?
- Yeah, up.
- Down, up.
- Yeah, then you've got to spread them out.
- [Ben] Yeah, let me go ahead. How's that?
- That ain't too bad. That's how to tell if we want it.
- [Ben] Oh, it's falling, get the handle, it'll be a little heavier.
- Get the handle on.
- [Ben] Then we're done. How about that?
- Well, give us it. That should set up. It's hard for people to transfer their idea into your head, you know? But Ben, one can pick it up. If you give him your idea, he can pick it up and go from there. He's been very handy there, bend her out. Thank you. Now, what I owe you for that, Ben?
- [Ben] Oh, about a buck and a half. Thank you, sir.
- [Burns] I've always liked Ben's work, and I always like to work with Ben. As I say, you can tell him, and he'll listen to ya, and most generally, you come out with what you want.
- [Narrator] From rivulets in the Vermont hills, to growing volumes in the streams, water becomes a source of energy when forced to rise behind a dam. In Ben's mill, that water passes through a penstock, a wooden pipe leading to a turbine. The turbine is fully enclosed. Inside, the water turns the blades of a wheel attached to the main shaft. Pulleys fixed to the spinning main shaft transmit power to the entire mill through a system of belts, pulleys, and line shafts.
- It's the most efficient power there is. My turbine is 90% efficient. The only next thing is electric motor, and that's way less. Even the steam locomotives they run on the railroads are 25% efficient. This is the most efficient power there is, really.
- [Narrator] But a lot of work goes into maintaining the mill pond. Each fall, the gates of the dam must be raised, and the pond drained in order to flush out all the silt washed in from upstream.
- [Ben] You drain it out to wash out all this accumulation of silt. This was washed right down to the gravel, probably there was 12 feet of water up there last fall when I closed it up. See what all come in one year. You either clean it out, or in the winter, you get no water. If the ice freeze down so far, and it shut it right off, see, before it can get there.
- [Narrator] Once the mill pond is drained, Ben can go down the forebay to inspect and patch the inside of the 30 foot long penstock which carries water to the turbine.
- [Ben] I go right inside of it. There's probably three sheets of aluminum rotting in there now, and I just put all the bad leaks , see? Just three bad leaks now, won't take me long.
- [Narrator] At the turbine, Ben inspects the bearings, and removes twigs and debris which may have lodged in the water inlets. All of Ben's machines have cutting edges which must be kept sharp. Not so easy when working with used or roughly handled lumber.
- [Ben] Planing nails in boards. We need to get all the gravel on the board too, it's not so bad. So now I'm gonna take 'em off out here and drag 'em right into the gravel, you know? They don't think nothing about it. These have been on here since 1948. They wouldn't last some people that long. They'd grind 'em off more than I do. It all depends really on what you, what you plane, how much you plane, so.
- [Narrator] A local farmer has ordered a wooden tub to be used for watering his livestock. Ben can make the tub in a day. The first step is to plane all the lumber to proper thickness. Moving onto a different machine may require the transfer of power from one set of line shafts to another. The new machine is then started by shifting its belt from an idler pulley to a drive pulley. Ben then speeds up the machine by letting more water flow through the turbine.
- [Ben] That's what's nice about water power. Just let more water through and get more speed. You do it all the time automatically without thinking of it. You know, get the speed you want on the machine just by regulating water.
- [Narrator] Ben is jointing the edges of planks which will fall the bottom of the water tub. The jointer or buzz planer squares and straightens the edges so that all the bottom planks will lie flush together and be watertight. Laying out the circle.
- [Ben] I've got a stick over there, I've got to find it. Here it is. It's been here a lot longer than I have. It was here when I came here in 1941. Looked just like that with all those holes in it. Make a lot of tubs. You can see how many different sizes of tubs, that's just moving this nail for your center, see? And then you run your pencil round your circumference.
- [Narrator] Ben marks the position for dowels, which will hold the bottom planks in alignment.
- [Ben] Probably in a five, six foot tub, you'd have three hardwood dowels here, half inch, in the length of a plank. Mark all those, then number all your planks, right across, one, two, three, four, five, six, or however many you've got, then saw them on the band saw.
- [Narrator] Ben uses a double marking gauge to lay out a bevel around the circumference of the bottom.
- [Ben] We take a marking gauge, and you grind your bottom an inch and a quarter, like that.
- [Narrator] The edges are trimmed to the lines in order to accept the wooden staves of the water tub. Ben tests the bevel to fit the notch of a pattern stave.
- [Ben] Inches on like that. The seal is different than the barrel. You know, how a barrel is made, the chime is right down almost to nothing. It bucks right against the wood to get the seal, see? But this one, to get the seal, see? But this one, seal's on the pinch here and there.
- [Narrator] A warm spell in the winter can threaten the dam if loose ice from upstream builds up behind it. Room must be made for the loose ice to surface, and flow over the dam.
- [Ben] Stepped on a cake of ice once here, turned over like that, went up to the house, wrung my clothes out, so happens I had a fifth of Johnny Walker up there, I took a drink of that, and came right back down, went to work.
- [Narrator] The bottom planks for the tub have been marked for doweling. Holes are now bored in the edges of the planks to accept the hardwood dowels. Making the dowels.
- It's a square peg in a round hole, which they say can't be done, you know? But you make a dowel, round pin, a dowel, just like that. Usually put paint between the joints too. I don't know if it's really necessary or not, we always did, the way I was taught. I think it's mostly if we don't put no paint between the staves, they don't leak. I think it's mostly to, any imperfection, when you joint at the edges, the bottom, see? You have to fill it, seal it. We always do it. I guess some of 'em cleat the bottom to hold it. I dowel it. The idea of 'em is to hold your bottom in line even while you're putting it together, even right till the tub is built.
- [Narrator] Work on the staves for the water tub begins with cutting all the pieces to length. The length is set by notches on the fence.
- [Ben] This one right here is for two foot stave, see? Two feet's standard almost, that is for a stock tub. When you come to another something you're gonna cut a lot of, you just pick your gauge.
- [Narrator] The staves are ripped to width. Anticipating the final splay of the tub, Ben places a jig under each stave to angle the notch.
- [Ben] The notch has been here a lot longer than I have. Been used and used and used. Now, that clamps on there. You raise it that much, see?
- [Narrator] The notch is made with a dado head. The inside edge of each stave is angled so that when the tub is finished, its weight will rest on the outside of the staves.
- [Ben] That is so when you're moving it round, you can't get any pressure on here to split this off, see? Your pressure's going to come back here. That's what that's for.
- [Narrator] Because he must fit them in a circle around the tub, Ben figures the angle, or bevel, for the staves.
- [Ben] Then you put your bevel square on there and then you get your angle, see? Then you set your buzz planer fence as near as you can, right there, see? That's supposed to be the right angle for that width per stave. Buzz out four of five of 'em and put 'em on, and then rectify it if it's a little off, sometimes it's not perfect first time. Staves that width, take at least four of 'em, and then just hold 'em together, put 'em on the end and hold 'em together, shove 'em right up against the tub and see whether you're gonna, whether your circle is too tight or too open.
- [Narrator] At the same time he makes the bevel, Ben also tapers each stave in order to form the splay of the tub.
- [Ben] My tub is put together wrong side up, with the bottom on horses, I go on and get those staves on 'em, they start falling off, I go in with a few sets of penny nails and take a rope, and that works awful slick too. Sometimes, I mean, , you come out and maybe you've got two or three staves left. Keep throwing out the first ones, and then you keep getting shorter and you use some of them fallings, and for some of 'em, I mean, the last two or three tubs I made, I only had three staves left.
- [Narrator] A threading machine is used to thread each end of the hoop. Cutting oil is used to get smoother threads.
- The bottom hoop, when your tub is right side up, of course, when it's gonna be used, is just as near the bottom as you can have it, and not be below the bottom. And you set your next hoop up, probably, oh, perhaps a third of the way up, because there's more pressure down there than there is up above, and then your top one goes down from the edge three or four inches. It will probably creak when I pick it up now. Give a little. But I don't think we'll fall far. Around here, we'll dry shave the corner. Smooth it round near the brass. So the cows don't scratch their necks when they're reaching right down there. And you want to get it sanded off, and you know, just makes it look prettier. Makes it paint better too. It's just brown paint, outside paint. You've got to thin it, you don't thin it, you get the edge painted and it don't run so much. If it's running down the inside, don't look good. I paint fast, probably take an hour. I use a small brush, do a good job. No such thing as waterproof paint, I say. Maybe there is now, I don't know. They can make most anything, but if you paint both sides, then your water is bound to get through that paint, and then it don't circulate freely, it's in there sitting dead more or less, and that causes decay. You can see it on these old barns that never had any paint, and the seals and the boards and everything are weathered, but they're not rotten. Paint's for looks I think, mostly. Come on now. What do you say?
- [Woman] Ben and his Tunbridge Fair, well, it wouldn't be fall if you didn't have the Tunbridge Fair.
- [Man] He's got friends everywhere. Everybody knows him.
- [Man] He's helped everybody. I don't know if the man's got an enemy in the world. Your attention please?
- 3,600 on the boat.
- [Man] Ben's been everywhere. He worked in lumber camps, he drove oxen and then he drove horses a lot. Repairing sleds and shoeing horses, and you name it what that fella hasn't done.
- [Announcer] All the way, okay, and a goodun it was, all the way and a goodun it was. Raise it up more. This will be the last dance.
- [Man] He's a sociable guy, but he likes to be alone for a lot too. Some people have known him all his life but don't really know how to figure him out at all.
- [Man] To good at hiding for his own good, that's the trouble with him. He never charged too much. He'd have been a millionaire if he'd charged what he ought to have.
- [Man] Where the hell can you get somebody to forge well chains and build grab hooks, and fix hole handles and build water tubs or weld truck bodies? There's gonna be a lot of people that gonna say, "Where in the hell are we gonna get this work done?"
- I'll bring my own hammer next time. I think I bought it at an auction. Thought it just looked interesting, so we got it.
- [Narrator] Throughout Vermont, scores of mills lie in ruin. Ben knows many in the Barnet area.
- In Barnet, four , six grist mills, seven saw mills, three cotton machines, three tanneries. There was a tannery here once at one time.
- [Narrator] Often, several mills line the same river.
- They all took advantage of it, see? Use the water over and over. One man and another man. As long as there was room to put in two or three mills, they always did it, 'cause that was where the power was, where the fall was. They put mills where they had water power. Make any difference where they was, if it was on the edge of town, that's where they put 'em. Where you had the fall in the brooks, see, so you've got heads of power. That's the bearing for the shaft, it ran right through here. They took the power off the wheel. And these are wet. Fill that full of water, you ain't gotta touch it for two weeks. They had a shaft through here, and pulleys on it. There's one down there, pretty near spoiled. That's a big pulley. Boy, it's gearing something up. It's bigger than any pulley I got. It's a penstock, it went from the dam down to the sawmill, to get the water down to the wheel. Big wooden pipe, you might say. A good deal like a silo laid down, a penstock is. Awful similar. Spliced in these hooks, they wasn't long enough. I've welded for two days on 'em, spliced 'em. Right outdoors, with a crank . I came up here and done it. It was easier to move me than twas the iron. Worked the mill yard right outdoors. The wind blowing a big bad. Not too hot either.
- [Narrator] Many mills were bigger than Ben's. This one in East Barnet was carried away in a flood.
- [Ben] It was a sawmill and croquet factory, and they done almost everything here. There was more machine than I've got twice over. About they only place they make croquet sets. I never seen anything but Roy Brothers' croquet sets. I never even played croquet either. Employed a lot of men, like, be hard to guess how many. Not only the ones that worked in the factory, but they had crews out in the woods cutting lumber, all around, on lumber land that they own. 1927 flood took it. Right down the brook. That was the end of it. The dam is not that bad. I wish I had one as good as that.
- [Narrator] Back at Ben's dam, silt continues to build up, blocking the trash rack.
- [Ben] We had some beavers that was trying to stop everything every night, and they kept shoving it right up against the rock, , the power it off. See, they go around smelling round, see where the current is. I don't argue 'em, 'cause they plug all the other leaks in the dam. Yep.
- [Narrator] George Randell uses Ben for a lot of things. Today, he's brought a pulp hook for repair.
- That hook I brought in keeps bending, and I straighten it.
- [Narrator] George also hopes that Ben will build a sled to use with his team of horses next winter.
- You think you can build a sled this fall, Ben?
- [Ben] You gotta have a sled, huh?
- [George] Yep, kinda need one.
- [Ben] That's gonna be what kind of sled?
- Well, three beam.
- Three beam.
- Three beam.
- Three beam. Four foot center on the runner.
- That's what I think, yup. For big horses, you know.
- Probably seven foot on the rock.
- [George] Yeah, seven, eight. Somewhere, somewhere.
- Somewhere there, but whatever the runners work out, yeah, mm hmm. What kind of runner's it gonna have?
- [George] Um, either a moccasin or a half moccasin, one or the other.
- Might as well make 'em full moccasin. That way, they don't go in at the bottom.
- That's right.
- They don't have to be so deep to turn these you understand, they don't scrape snow when you're coming, it just goes right over the top.
- [George] Yep.
- Yep. Yeah, we can probably work it in the rest of the stuff. We've got some stuff here we can use over. There's a roll right there, we can get the bends off the rolls, and there's the hook.
- [George] Yep.
- [Ben] This type of bulk here would be better, see? Widen the sled out.
- [George] Yep, put in a wider pole too.
- [Ben] Put in a wider pole, yeah. Yeah, them'll work. I put all those runners in new for old Fred Hubbard. I can tell my work, I can see it.
- I don't know what he ever made of himself. Give me a ring when it gets ready.
- [Ben] Yep, yep.
- When we were working in the woods, we watched for a tree which grow crooked, you know, on the stump and then straightened up so that we get the straight runner then with just the end turned up there. That is a good piece of wood, that is. That's the nicest bit of wood.
- [Ben] There, that's for that sled.
- 90 feet is about $21.
- [Ben] 21? You pick up these logs that've got a crook in for some runners because they're always very manageable. They used to always save 'em when they were cutting wood or lumbering away back when they used a lot of sleds. Better than a straight board for that purpose. Your grain runs right around, and they're stronger. Won't split, see? Crack off. I'll use a pattern, it don't necessarily have to be a pattern for this kind of a sled, but just to get the nice, gradual curve on the front that runs easy. Where it came from originally, it probably was made here. Or somebody might've took a pattern right off of a nice runner that they liked. Well, I'll start with a square so I can tell where the end of my nose of the runner's gonna come, and get the maximum height, see? Which I'm after on this one. Course, this is cut down light, and I widen this outside the curve. Also the inside curve on the top, so I just set it up, take it, pull that and that's the bench runner. Modify it a little bit. And there's the slow, gradual rise to the runner. The more gradual you have it, the easier that sled will run, see? Well, they will be metered perfect for length when they get round, 'cause we'd saw this nose on one, and mark it right onto the other one usually, so you get 'em just the same. They gotta be equal, to pull right, straight and everything. They all got to be the same. You set your bench at a 45, that's what makes the moccasin.
- [Narrator] George's sled has been ordered with moccasin runners. Ben shapes them by beveling both edges on the jointer. Moccasin runners will ride higher in the snow, allowing the sled to turn more easily.
- [Ben] You've got a piece of timber six inches thick, but you take the bottom corners off till you've only got two inches on the very bottom. Your runner is thicker than an ordinary sled runner, it makes it right up onto the snow. Turn easier because it's not down in the snow. Even pulls easier. Of course, I've got three quarter inch old silo hooks, they'll work in the pins, come up through the runners up by the beams. Recycling. Keep American clean. They tear down silos, and I find out, and some of 'em charge me a little, some of 'em want to get rid of it, and bring it here and dump it off, I don't even have to touch it. Let this slide off, see, I'll let it. Put my hardy in, take my rule and mark it where I'm gonna cut it. Two blows of the hammer at least. And then lay it in where I want to cut.
- [Narrator] Old silo hoops supply the iron for pins which will hold the sled together. Bent ends will hold the pins in the wooden runners.
- [Ben] Turn the ends looking out instead of hitting 'em or anything. Roughly you bend the three quarter inch higher, and you lose three quarters of an inch just bending it. Just hitting the side and make a right angle there.
- [Narrator] Ben saws the crossbeams to shape. They will support the heavy loads to be carried by the sled. Ben readies the beams for fastening to the runners.
- [Ben] The beams are held to the runners by those pins that come up through the runner and go either side of the beam. It's got a half hole bored in each side. You draw an outer square too, where you square an inch to get your runners to pitch out. You draw a line down there, you square it. You take a handsaw and you make, oh, just about the depth of the teeth, cut in on that line. Take two of 'em, clamp 'em together like that, then you bore right down between 'em. That saw cut drives the worm of your bit, see? So it goes just right. If it was molded right through the beam, it would have the tendency to split the beam. Course, with a pin each side of the beam, it can't split anyways, confined.
- [Narrator] Two wooden raves go over the ends of the beams, above the runners.
- [Ben] It's just a piece of two by six made of hardwood. They go lengthways across the beams. You gotta mark it where you wanna bore it, and you do that with just sliding it up against the pin, so you know where every pin is. The pins come right upside your beam and through the rave. You get it bored, you drop it on, with the end just blind cut there for its width and see where it centers on the runner and then mark it to make those two angle cuts. It's tapered off like that, see, so we can drive it by a stump or something, it don't catch. It's just plain cornered little lumber joint just to make it look good, to make it. If one is bolted tight and the other not, if one runner's going down and the other one is going up, that beam can roll a little bit in between those pins, because it's pitched only on one side, where if you bolted both sides, it'd be tighter than that tight. Then you hit it right on the runner, you just hammer 'em right down, that's where you get your good fit. Yeah, that's why you heat it, so you can mark it. It bends easy. Oh, you just sear it, it won't hurt it any. You take it right off the minute you get it done anyway. The shoe goes under the nose iron. You get it hot, and that iron will hold it right in while you bend it. The minute you get it fitted, you take it off so it won't burn the runner. You can fit a shoe like that and not even burn the runner, like you would maybe a sleigh, you know, the runner's only so thick. You have a piece of tin you lay under it, and you bend right over that which doesn't change the contour of it any, but it keeps it from burning the runner, or even char it.
- [Narrator] Shoe bolts are no longer available, so Ben makes his own. They will hold the steel shoes to the moccasin runners.
- [Ben] You can't buy shoe bolts anymore. Just 'cause there's not enough call for 'em probably. If there was call enough for 'em, somebody would make 'em.
- [Narrator] The head is shaped to fit a counter-sunk hole.
- [Ben] If you put 'em in without counter-sinking 'em, the heads would wear out and then your shoes'd come off. This way, the counter sink is pretty near the bottom of the shoe, you can wear your shoe almost to nothing, and still it's held on by that bolt.
- [Narrator] On the third day of work, Ben completes the roll for the front of the sled. The feather bolts come from an old sled.
- [Ben] These come off a sled that I built years ago, and fella went out of business and sold out, and then a fella went up and claimed junk from the new owner, and he thought it was too bad to junk that, and brought it down and unloaded it here.
- [Narrator] The feather bolts will attach the pole to the roll.
- [Ben] Probably why they call 'em feather bolts, this is the quill of it, and there's the feather part of it. Shaped like a feather. In order to pull it, you've got to have some way to hitch the horses on, they usually just have a heavy iron hook, starts in on the pole, goes up round the roll at back. From start to finish, there's quite a lot to it for a simple machine. Work in the woods quite a lot, drove a team pulling logs on sleds. if you've used what you're trying to build, you know, you've got some idea of how it ought to be made.
- [George] That'll hold her down on over the fender while, I was getting it clear. Don't feel too light. Just lay it on there.
- That makes it legal.
- [George] See you later, Ben.
- [Ben] Too bad that the whole movie couldn't have been made back when these old fellas that I learned from was here doing the work. I was just a Johnny come lately. I kept it going a little while, but the real history of it was way before me, see what I mean? Maybe you don't.
- [George] Whoa there. It's off again. Way over.
