Looking at an underground horse whimsy yesterday, rather than the rope drum being mounted on the main spindle, this one appears to have had a separate drum driven by a geared drive shaft.

The main spindle is still in-situ and has a bevel gear mounted on it, the drive shaft has a bevelled gear at either end and next to the dismantled end frames of the rope drum, there are 2 large bevelled crown gears.
My idea is that rather than turning the horse to reverse the winch, the 2 large bevel gears were mounted on the drum shaft facing each other with the drive bevel gear between them. To change direction, the shaft was moved so that the drive bevel disengaged from one of the crown gears and engaged with the other. This would reverse the rotation of the drum. There is a lever mechanism of the right sort of size in the pile of stuff.

Does anyone have any useful knowledge about horse whimsys which didn't use direct drive?

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I think this would involve a sliding 'dog' to engage one or the other bevel gears, any evidence of this?.

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No evidence of a dog system - the crown gears and the drum frame plates are all shaped for the same sized square section axle. I didn't check the bearing housing on the main spindle but if that was allowed to pivot on the same axis as the spindle, it would allow the drive shaft to be moved without compromising the gear mesh.
I'll do a sketch to show how I think it was...

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I understand what you are saying, and your mention of the square axle is of interest, it would appear that the 'magic' is in the drive spindle, my earlier reference to a 'sliding dog' was based upon experience with mechanically driven stuff, with a horse you can stop it and have time to sort out your gearing.

I am stretching my imagination to the limit trying to picture this assembly, photo's or a diagram would be useful??

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Whilst this is no use at all to the present query -I do remember there being a reversable horse-gin in the museum at Claushall in the Harz mountains. Being a piece of German engineering it was also fitted with a depth indicator and a drum brake!!!!

There's also the example at Wetherlam Mine in the lakes - that's actually a piece of agricultural equipment pressed into use for driving a winch at the mine!

[photo]10660[/photo]

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There's also the example at Wetherlam Mine in the lakes - that's actually a piece of agricultural equipment pressed into use for driving a winch at the mine!

[photo]10660[/photo]

I am fairly sure that I saw one of those on an ochre mine in the Mendips.

Very similar, TM.
I think you refer to the top pulley of the gravity powered tramway at Axbridge Ochre Cavern

Although this one was made by Dening and Co of Chard, and doesn't have any cog teeth on it, it's just an idle pulley.
There's a better picture in the "Earth Colours" book (p134) if you have that.

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Very similar, TM.
I think you refer to the top pulley of the gravity powered tramway at Axbridge Ochre Cavern

Although this one was made by Dening and Co of Chard, and doesn't have any cog teeth on it, it's just an idle pulley.
There's a better picture in the "Earth Colours" book (p134) if you have that.

That's the chappie.

http://www.aditnow.co.uk/Photo/Horse-Whim_106288/ 

Is this what you're after?
The horse moves in one direction only. To reverse direction the whim is thrown out of gear and the kibble descends under its own weight.

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Nearly there, main difference is that the drum wasn't directly driven from the spindle, there was a drive shaft. The unusual thing is that the drive shaft went above the horse and not below like the gin we've got at the smelt mill at Nenthead.
It looks like the kibble was winched down as well as up given the 2 crown gears.
I have a feeling that this is a very late example of a horse whim, lots of iron technology!

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