Editing Windlass (section)

==Uses==
* [[Vitruvius]], a military engineer writing about 28&nbsp;BC, defined a machine as "a combination of timber fastened together, chiefly efficacious in moving great weights". About a century later, [[Hero of Alexandria]] summarized the practice of his day by naming the "five [[simple machine]]s" for "moving a given weight by a given force" as the lever, windlass, screw for power, wedge, and tackle block (pulley). Until nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was held that these "five mechanical powers" were the building blocks from which all more complex assemblages were constructed.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hartenberg |first1=Richard |last2=Danavit |first2=Jacques |date=1964 |title=Kinematic Synthesis of linkages |publisher=McGraw-Hill |url=http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kmoddl;cc=kmoddl;view=toc;subview=short;idno=kmod013}}</ref>
* During the [[Middle Ages]] the windlass was used to raise materials for the construction of buildings such as in [[Church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield|Chesterfield's crooked spire church]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Medieval Builders' Windlass |publisher=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/pB9o-yDFQPm4ZiMXxjZfQA |access-date=September 11, 2012}}</ref>
* A windlass cocking mechanism on [[crossbow]]s was used as early as 1215 in England, and most European crossbows had one by the [[Late Middle Ages]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Engineering the Medieval Achievement-The Crossbow |publisher=MIT |url=http://web.mit.edu/21h.416/www/militarytechnology/crossbow.html |access-date=September 11, 2012}}</ref>
* Windlasses are sometimes used on boats to raise the [[anchor]] as an alternative to a vertical [[capstan (nautical)|capstan]] (see [[anchor windlass]]).
* The handle used to open [[Lock (water transport)|locks]] on the UK's [[Canals of the United Kingdom|inland waterways]] is called a '''windlass'''.
* Windlasses can be used to raise water from a [[water well|well]]. The oldest description of a [[Water well|well]] windlass, a rotating wooden rod installed across the mouth of a well, is found in [[Isidore of Seville]]'s ({{circa}}&nbsp;560–636) ''Origenes'' (XX, 15, 1–3).<ref>{{citation |last=Oleson |first=John Peter |author-link=John Peter Oleson |year=1984 |title=Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-lifting Devices. The History of a Technology |publisher=D. Reidel |place=Dordrecht |isbn=90-277-1693-5 |page=56}}.</ref>
* Windlasses have also been used in [[gold mining]]. A windlass would be constructed above a shaft which allowed heavy buckets to be hauled up to the surface.<ref>{{cite web |title=Albert Goldfields Mining Heritage |publisher=Outback NSW |url=http://outbacknsw.com.au/mining%20brief%20history.pdf |access-date=September 11, 2012}}</ref> This process would be used until the shaft got below 40 metres deep, when the windlass would be replaced by a "whip" or a "[[Whim (mining)|whim]]".<ref>{{cite web |title=Searching for Gold |publisher=Kidcyber |url=http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/goldsearch.htm |access-date=September 11, 2012}}</ref>