TL4138 : Great Chishill Mill - tentering mechanism
taken 1 year ago, near to Great Chishill, Cambridgeshire, England

This shows the governor and its linkage (8) to the tentering beam (9). There is also manual adjustment of the gap between the stones by means of (10). This is the front set of stones. The rear (tail) set of stones have their own governor.
In a mill context, tentering is changing the distance (gap) between the runner stone and the bed stone. Decreasing the distance results in a finer grain. As the stones go faster there is a natural tendency for the runner to rise and the tentering mechanism can be adjusted to counter this. In many windmills this is done by a governor that automatically compensates for the tendency of the runner to rise. In watermills it is done by hand with mechanisms of varying elegance. In this case, the second order lever at the bottom raises or lowers the footstep bearing that the spindle carrying the stone nut is supported by. The adjustment is by a vertical lead screw on the other side of the frame and in easy reach of the miller.
