How a Water Wheel Powers the Mill and Woodshop at Tafona Carlos Hage

And here, look, as I lower this here, it releases the water behind the barrier, right?

The more water I need, the more I—I open this lever here.

Now the water behind it has been released.

This is what turns the waterwheel on and off.

Now it's off. And here I let the water onto the wheel again, then it'll start up again.

Here we have the lower part, where all the power from the waterwheel comes in, the gear, the drive shaft here, look.

This belt carries all the power from the bottom up, right?

Now, I'm working the mill side. If I want to work in the woodshop, then I pull this belt over here.

Then this side stops, and the machines work at the other shed over there.

We'll see how the woodshop works later. And this wheel is what runs the whole operation.

It's like the fuel, The electricity, the mill's motor here.

Is that right, Mr. Manfredo? It's true. Instead of having an electric motor there, see, this waterwheel powers all the machinery there, the mill and all the other machines inside there.

And how big is that wheel? This wheel here is four meters in diameter.

Four meters in diameter. And everything we're seeing here is made of wood.

It's all made of wood. Yes. There's the, the axle, everything, only the ends are joined with, uh…

with, with iron, right? Yes, yes. And here's a wooden flume too, bringing the water.

This flume is also entirely made of wood.

The flume farther back was made of concrete, but in the old days it was all wood, right?

Today it's concrete, right? Only this part up here is, is made of, of wood, right?

So the water is diverted back there from the stream And it flows back into the stream here.

The water flows away, you know? Yes. There isn't much water being held back, nothing.

It's just diverted, and the water goes back to its normal flow.

It goes right back to nature, to its normal flow, right, for conservation.

Yeah, everything's in nature, and it goes back to nature.

How beautiful. So this cable here and this little wheel are connected to the lever for the water wheel over there.

Then I let the water in here, look. Then the water wheel opens up, the water over there.

And then the machines here in the workshop start working, look. This belt here, one loose pulley and one fixed pulley.

Then I move this one over here, then the circular saw and the tenoning machine work.

Then we have a detail here in the wood.

It's a router, it depends on the tools you use there, right, to work the wood, make the details, right.

To work with the planer, We take this same belt from the circular saw here, then put it on the planer.

It's here.

Then the procedure is to turn on the planer.

I'll turn the water back on here above the wheel, then it starts picking up speed again.

Now the water is flowing over the wheel and it'll build up power.

And what was made here at this woodworking shop, Mr. Manfredo?

Here, my father made all sorts of things.

He made doors, windows, our house over there, the doors, everything was made right here.

And he made chairs, like this one here, even that chair of ours over there.

This one is also a chair that he made. Back then, he also made water wheels.

Here we have models of water wheels. This is a model of a water wheel three meters in diameter.

Here are other models, four meters in diameter.

Well, actually, he made furniture in general like this, but he only made it here for our community.

He didn't make furniture for, for far away, only for, here for, for our community here, you know?

Mr. Manfredo, we're impressed by all this setup, and folks, this is a history lesson.

We're learning so much here right now. We thank you so much.

And we also have a question: The waterwheel runs on water.

And what happens during a drought? Has there ever been a really severe drought here?

Let's talk about something very important, Mr. Manfredo.

The name of this place. The name of this place is, we named it in memory of my father, the Tafona Carlos Hage.

This is the— if anyone happens to be interested in visiting the place, they can look it up there, the Tafona Carlos Hage.

There's an address, folks. Just enter it in Go- Google Maps, right?

Then you put it in, and getting here is easy, we had no trouble finding it.

And visits are accepted by reservation. Yes, by reservation. That's right.

Our phone number is, is [47] 99981-4320.

It really is by reservation. We definitely, uh, recommend it.

Ibirama is a beautiful city, with lots of nature, and lots of adventure tourism that we'll also show here on our channel.

And for sure, folks, this story can't be left unknown.

Come visit.