Six mechanical stages turn moving air into either dry land or ground pigment. Click through each one.
Click a numbered point on the diagram, or a button beside it — both control the same explanation.
The first five stages are identical everywhere. Stage six is why Kinderdijk and Zaanse Schans look and sound completely different inside.
Sails, cap, brake wheel, and the main gearing chain work the same way in every traditional Dutch windmill, whatever it's for — that machinery evolved over centuries into a fairly standard design. The difference between a drainage mill and an industrial mill is entirely in what's bolted onto the bottom of the upright shaft. At Kinderdijk, that's a scoop wheel or an Archimedes' screw, silently lifting water in a slow, continuous rotation you can watch from the towpath. At Zaanse Schans's De Kat, it's a set of heavy stone edge-runners grinding pigment with a rhythmic, grinding rumble; at De Zoeker, it's an oil press. Same wind, same sails, same first five stages — a genuinely different last one.