[Sca-cooks] Re: clockwork rotisserie

[A F Murphy]

Hey! Nice to see you on this list! You'll see a few familiar faces... or
at least, addresses - some of us have different names, though I don't.
I'm a lot noisier here, though. *G*

Anne

Ron Carnegie wrote:

>At 08:24 PM 8/25/02 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>        I can probably get you photos of a reproduction 18th century clock
>jack, but they are incredibly complicated and not much use under the
>conditions we normally cook in (unless you have  a permanant hearth that
>is).  They use a weight system to drive the mechanism, rather than springs.
>You have to crank the weight's rope around a winch which hopefully unwinds
>slowly as the mechanism runs.  This part of the assembly therefore must be
>mounted high enough to give a long enough run to make the tool useful, as
>when the weight hits the floor you have to crank again.
>
>        I mentioned hopefully.  The wieghts are in different sizes, since
>the food cooked is in different weights.  This helps keep the spit turning
>at the proper speed.
>
>        I have used clock jacks and they can be annoying. (because of the
>recranking, we never seem to have the correct weights!   Better to put a
>child or apprentice to turning the spit by hand!
>
>        Another sort of jack, which would be easier to make I think, would
>be a smoke or chimney jack.  These rely on the rising heat to turn them,
>just like those little christmas decorations with the candles.
>
>
>I remain,
>Ranald de Balinhard,
>Ron Carnegie
>r.carnegie at verizon.net
>	*************************************************
>	"The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that
>	 once on this earth, on this familiar spot of ground walked
>	 other men and women as actual as we are today, thinking
>	 their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions but now
>	 all gone, vanishing after another, gone as utterly as we
>	 ourselves shall be gone like ghosts at cockcrow."
>				G.M. Trevelyan
>	*************************************************
>
>