Harwinton Fair 1830’s Shingle Mill

harwintonfair....
We believe that this shingle mill was made in the 1830’s. Originally, it was powered by a water wheel.

[@amylizziematthews9154]

So you know if they still make shingles? We need shingles for a bump out/shed on the side of our house, and I guess they are hard to find - and we're nearby to Harwinton!

[@JaredDunbar]

We did run the shingle mill again this year as an educational demonstration but the Harwinton Agricultural Society doesn’t make shingles for sale because it puts a lot of wear on the machine which is over 150 years old.

[@BenjaminEsposti]

About 14 seconds for one shingle, so that's about 2000 in 8 hours - not counting the time to swap in a new wood block.

[@JaredDunbar]

They would have probably used it at a higher speed than we do at the fair if it was from overhead belt in a factory (a hit and miss engine runs slower). Material is donated so it’s more important to show the process than produce the result. If you operated this in production today you would not be able to run it for 8 hours at a time without hearing protection because it generates over 100 dB of sound level, which is above OSHA limits.