De Olifant, Burdaard
Encyclopedia
De Olifant is a smock mill
Smock mill
The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...

 in Burdaard
Burdaard
Burdaard is a small village in Ferwerderadiel in the province Friesland of the Netherlands and has around 1080 citizens .-Windmills:There are two windmills in Burdaard. De Olifant is a drainage mill dating from 1867 which has been restored to working order. De Zwaluw is a corn, pearl barley and...

, Friesland
Friesland
Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...

, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 which has been restored to working order. The mill is listed as a Rijksmonument
Rijksmonument
A rijksmonument is a National Heritage Site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.-History and criteria:...

, number 35673.

History

De Olifant was originally built at Oostwold
Oostwold (Scheemda)
Oostwold is a village in the municipality of Scheemda in the province of Groningen in the Netherlands. The village is home to the Oostwold Airport....

, Groningen
Groningen (province)
Groningen [] is the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands. In the east it borders the German state of Niedersachsen , in the south Drenthe, in the west Friesland and in the north the Wadden Sea...

 in 1856 where it drained the Oosterwolderpolder. In 1867 it was moved to Burdaard where it drained the Olifantpolder. The cost of purchase and re-erection was ƒ2,000. The mill worked until 1970 when it was taken out of use. The mill was sold to Stichting de Fryske Mole on 20 June 1977. Restoration was carried out in 1978-79 and again in 1991.

Description

De Olifant is what the Dutch describe as an "achtkante grondzeiler". It is a smock mill winded by a winch. There is no stage, the sails reaching almost to the ground. The mill has a single storey brick base and a two storey smock. The smock has vertical weatherboarding and the cap is thatched. The four Common sails have a span of 23.9 metre and are carried in a cast iron windshaft which was made by Prins van Oranje of Den Haag in 1877. The windshaft also carries the brake wheel, which has 65 cogs. This drives the wallower (37 cogs) at the top of the upright shaft. At the bottom of the upright shaft, the great spur wheel (71 cogs) drives three wooden shafts, each of which drives a wooden Archimedes screw via another set of gears. Two of the Archimedes screws drain the "Olifant polder" while the third pumps water into the polder
Polder
A polder is a low-lying tract of land enclosed by embankments known as dikes, that forms an artificial hydrological entity, meaning it has no connection with outside water other than through manually-operated devices...

.

The drive to the larger of the two Archimedes screws that drain the polder is from a 38 cog gear wheel meshing with the great spur wheel. This drives a 35 cog gear wheel which drives the Archimedes screw via a 46 cog gear wheel on the axle of the Archimedes screw. This Archimedes screw has an axle diameter of 440 millimetres (17 in) and is 1.61 metre diameter overall. It is inclined at an angle of 17½°. Each revolution of the screw lifts 1528 litres (336.1 imp gal) of water.

The drive to the smaller of the two Archimedes screws that drain the polder is from a 36 cog gear wheel meshing with the great spur wheel. This drives a 33 cog gear wheel which drives the Archimedes screw via a 41 cog gear wheel on the axle of the Archimedes screw. This Archimedes screw has an axle diameter of 400 millimetres (16 in) and is 1.31 metre diameter overall. It is inclined at an angle of 121°. Each revolution of the screw lifts 649 litres (142.8 imp gal) of water.

The drive to the Archimedes screw that pumps water into the polder is from a 38 cog gear wheel meshing with the great spur wheel. This drives a 25 stave gear wheel which drives a wallower (30 cogs). The wallower drives a gear wheel with 31 cogs. This drives a cast iron gear wheel with 48 teeth. This drives the Archimedes screw via a cast iron gear wheel with 60 cogs on the axle of the Archimedes screw. This Archimedes screw has an axle diameter of 400 millimetres (16 in) and is 1.37 metre diameter overall. It is inclined at an angle of 16°. Each revolution of the screw lifts 777 litres (170.9 imp gal) of water.
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