I built a manor in the Middle Ages

Chapter 61 Drilling a Well
The spinning wheel is not a difficult tool to understand.

The operating principle is very simple.

After the wool is defatted and dried, it can be slowly assembled into a ball, and then the top can be wetted with water and stretched and rubbed little by little to form wool yarn.

But this process is easy to say, but it is actually very long to implement.

It would take an unknown amount of time and energy to twist the wool into yarn by hand.

The spinning wheel is a tool that saves this process.

Luc had already asked Marie, and she knew that the tools she used to turn wool into thread were still the most primitive: a wooden stick and a round stone, using the power of the pendant's rotation to wind the thread.

So Luke called Ryan over. As a core technician of the "territory", Ryan's status was naturally higher than Robert's just by virtue of his carpentry skills, even in an ordinary village.

"Master, this spinning wheel seems to be a bit like a spinning wheel. It seems to be a smaller version of the spinning wheel."

Ryan rubbed his beard; fuzz was starting to form around his mouth.

“There are still differences.”

Luc shook his head. "It's the same as before. Split up into two groups. You build the wheels, and I'll build the base."

The wheels are relatively complicated, but with the manufacturing process of the drum cart, it is not a difficult task for Ryan.

The highlight of the wheel is the need to leave space on the roller for tying the wool thread with a wooden stick. Ryan first chiseled a piece of wood about the thickness of his thigh through the center, and then made four X-shaped wooden frames, two pairs in a group, crossed and put together to form a roller with eight wooden corners.

A total of sixteen wooden corner brackets were placed at each end of the bored wooden barrel, and finally strung together with a smooth and sturdy stick.

The base is very simple. A long wooden board is placed vertically in the middle of a short wooden board. On both sides of the short board are upward upright brackets. The inside of the brackets are opened up to just hold Ryan's wheels.

Finally, a handle was created and pressed against the outside of the bracket. At the end of the long wooden board, there was a detachable short wooden stick, and a basic spinning wheel was born.

Thanks to their superb carpentry skills, the two men completed the spinning wheel in just one afternoon, but the wool had not yet been degreased, so it had to be put aside.

In the evening, Luc and Ryan ate bread, and Robert's family continued to drink oatmeal. Early the next morning, Luc officially led all the adults to the backyard and started digging a well!
Before digging the well, Luc reopened the brick kiln and fired several batches of red bricks.

Luc did not forget the difficulty of getting water in winter when the river was frozen. In addition, the quality of groundwater was better than that of river water, so the benefits of digging a well were obvious.

However, choosing the location of the well is a rather complicated matter.

Fortunately, Luc was located in a ravine between the mountains and close to a water source, so there was no shortage of locations for building wells.

I searched the ground with a shovel and finally chose a spot about thirty yards behind the cabin.

The weeds here are lush, and the lusher the grass, the more abundant the groundwater may be.

"Right here. Robert!"

Luc threw the shovel to the dark and thin Robert. Digging a well was hard work, so Luc specially prepared a meat meal for Robert's family this morning.

At Luc's command, Robert pulled out the grass, drew a cross in the middle, and stabbed down hard at the center of the cross.

In fact, there is a very practical tool for digging wells, called a butterfly cone. It is an iron tool that looks like a butterfly with its wings spread. It can bring up the mud and sand on both sides when digging the soil. Unfortunately, Luc did not have much iron, so he could only dig down with a shovel.

First, a small opening was made along the mark to drill a wellbore, and then the scale was gradually expanded until a wellbore with a diameter of about three feet was dug.

The soil in the mountains gradually became soft as the hard soil on the surface was removed. Robert increased his speed and began to dig deeper.

The shovel in his hand dug very quickly, perhaps because of Luc's gaze, he worked very hard. But after all, he had just ended his escape from famine not long ago, and his strength was gradually fading. Seeing this, his wife took over the shovel and worked for him.

As the soil gradually penetrated deeper, the surface gradually took the shape of a wellhead. To prevent the wellhead from deforming and collapsing, Luke instructed Ryan to use the wood, stones and other things prepared in advance to build a hexagonal well radius at the wellhead.

The difficulty of digging a well lies not only in breaking the ground but also in preventing the wellhead from collapsing and contaminating the water. Ryan and Robert set up the wellbore at the edge of the well, which was half a meter deep. Initially, they could still shovel out the soil, but now they had to use rattan baskets to transport it.

Ryan and Robert pulled out baskets of wet soil. Soon Mary was exhausted, so Ryan volunteered to jump down the well.

As the depth of the well increased, the bottom became increasingly hot and stuffy. Ryan was sweating all over and his clothes were soaked.

This was an extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive project. Ryan, Robert and Mary switched back and forth and finally dug the well mouth to a depth of more than five yards. The rattan basket was also tied with rattan ropes on both sides to adapt to the increasingly deeper bottom of the well.

As he dug deeper, Ryan suddenly felt the soil at the bottom become very wet. He quickly sped up, and after a while, gurgling groundwater finally seeped out of the soil. Ryan was overjoyed and raised his head to the wellhead and shouted loudly: "Master, water is coming out!"

The three of them worked hard, and Luc was sitting beside them supervising them. When he heard the call, he knew it was his turn.

Luc pulled Ryan up with a hard rope made of several vines wrapped together, and carefully crawled to the bottom of the well.

Now it's Luc's turn to build the lower wellhead!

The well raft is actually a reinforcement measure built around the well from the bottom of the well water to the top.

While Luke carefully leveled the walls of the well, he directed Ryan to carry the bricks down.

There are also baskets of clay that have been made in advance.

The well wall is built up little by little with clay and red bricks, raising it layer by layer. After each layer is built, a layer of clay is applied on the outside to ensure the cleanliness of the water.

Halfway through the construction, Luc stopped and asked Ryan to bring the buckets. He scooped out brine bucket by bucket, and after clearing out almost all the mud, he covered the bottom of the well before continuing to build the unfinished well wall.

After the well wall was completed, the three people above worked together to pull Luc out.

Next is the repair of the wellhead.

They built a hexagonal wellhead based on the well radius and looked at the water at the bottom of the well. After being busy for nearly three days, everyone smiled at each other.

"Huh! Let's build the capstan in one go!"

There's nothing difficult about winching.

The real focus is the sturdiness of the rope, but a rattan rope that can pull a person can easily be used to pull a bucket.

Ryan spent a few days making another wooden barrel. This time there was a gap in the middle of the barrel, which was just right for threading the rattan rope.

A wooden shaft was made and placed on the wellhead. The wooden barrel was lowered into the bottom of the well little by little, and then the capstan was stirred to lift the barrel out.

"It looks like Miller won't have to go to the stream to get water every day."

However, Miller's small body obviously could not lift the bucket, so the task of fetching water naturally fell on Mary.

"Well done, I'll give you and your family a snack tonight!"

Luc waved his hand, he didn't mind giving Robert's family some insignificant benefits.

Working hard without any reward may be okay in the short term, but in the long run, you will eventually lack motivation.

When the well was officially completed, the wool was also successfully degreased.

After simply drying the wool and brushing it into a ball with a pig-hair brush, Mary wet the top of the wool and placed it on the spinning wheel. She cranked the handle with one hand, and the squeaking sound of the spinning wheel slowly came into her ears.

Strands of pure white woolen thread were wrapped around the wooden sticks at the base, and Luc stood beside them with a smile on his face.

It seems that soon I can finally ditch the linen and wear wool sweaters!

(End of this chapter)