The Nieberter mill will be closed for restoration until June. The wooden scaffolding has already been refurbished and now it’s the turn of the hood and the rods. Mill builders removed these parts on Tuesday morning.
A crane is standing next to the Nieberter mill. At a distance, behind a red and white ribbon, a group of millers and enthusiasts are watching in a bleak wind. A mill builder sits at the very top of the mill. He puts tension straps around the rear wooden beam, the short sprout, through an opening at the back. Occasionally his head sticks out of the hood. “It looks like a cuckoo clock,” says one.
Senior mill builder Rolf Dijkema (39) is standing at the entrance of the mill. “The hood will get new roof decking and a new short shoot,” he says. These parts have become weak over the years, mainly due to moisture, he explains. He uses the crane to place the ten-tonne component next to the mill, so that he and his colleagues can easily reach everything for the restoration.
Rods
Previously, the tail of the hood and the iron rods (the beams of the wing cross) were removed and placed on the driveway next to it. Mill teacher Aafke Voskes (67), who is standing at the red-white barrier tape, is happy that new rods are coming. While teaching at the mill, she was already worried. “We heard pieces of rust falling from the blades when turning. I thought, well, this can’t go on indefinitely.”
She knows very well that outdated rods can be dangerous. “There was a mill nearby (De Dellen in Nieuw-Scheemda, ed.) where the rods were broken,” says Voskes.
Hailstorms
Around half past eleven there is movement in the hood. “You can hear it creaking,” says Voskes. The crane tensions the lashing straps, but the hoisting is still awaited. The dark horizon betrays that a hailstorm is approaching. Bystanders rush under the roof of a shed.
Ten minutes later the hood is hanging over the mill. Windmill enthusiasts fall silent and grab their mobiles. “What a colossus it is,” says Voskes. The permanent miller, Tim den Houting (38), also looks surprised. “He suddenly looks much bigger,” he says.
Now that the hood is on the ground, the mill builders team can look back positively on the operation. With the coming and going of showers and gusts of wind, the job was a challenge. “We were always looking at the weather apps, says Dijkema. “Because there are ten and a half tons in the hoists.”