Mills to demonstrate forgotten art
Great Trek commemoration at Karel Landman Monument
Basil Mills doesn’t just talk about boer and settler frontier 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 that will see him giving a demonstration at the 185th anniversary of the Great
Trek, at the Karel Landman Monument near Alexandria on Saturday December 16.
Below, Mills explains what he will to be doing, together with Bathurst resident Jon Peters:
Shodding a wagon wheel
It is 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 handmade.
The wood was handsawn in sawpits, chalked and 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, myself and Jon Peters, and with the help of journeymen (three strong, trained young men) will 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 walks 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.