Wind energy - Carving wooden blades 3

I'm not so sure I can make the other half of this thing.

And I'm not so sure my glue Fu is powerful enough, or dynamic enough for this caper.

I got a shape that looks a bit like it should, but its in 3 very distinct steps. I get the feeling this will make for some inefficiencies , and perhaps a stack of noise.

It takes a lot of plane work and file work to get to anything that looks by eye to be about right.

The big problem, that is the problem bigger than the ones I'm dealing with now, is that I have to go on to make another of these on the other side. I have no idea if I can do that.

This blade will work, but its a thing made by eye, and it's a thing that deviates from the image I have in my head. Its not the same as the image in my head, how am I going to make another one that's the same as the one I already made.


But on more immediate concerns, my blade broke a bit when I was filing it.

I used PVA wood glue. (that white stuff you can make removable fingerprints with when you should have been listening to your teacher) But I think some epoxy might have been a better bet.

It should be safe enough because all sections will have the shaft through their centre, so if it all comes unstuck it will just be a motley collection of different shaped puzzle pieces spinning around in the breeze.

I glued it back together with yet more PVA glue just in case it will do, and wrapped it tightly with tape to hold it in place to dry.










I'm really not sure if I can make another blade the same as this without developing some other method. I have a pretty good eye for 3D shapes as a result of doing a bit of pottery, but I also have a pretty good understanding of the limitations of my current skill set.

At the moment I'm thinking...


  • Cutting this blade up into sections so I can trace the shape onto thin sheet plastic or something so I can cut out a series of section profiles that I can test a new blade against.
  • Mould making to duplicate this blade in cast plastic or something.
  • PVC (with PVC, I could use a template so I could copy the first blade I made. Other people have used PVC with some success, especially on smaller windmills like this one.
  • Or even making a big version of my proposed lure copying machine. I'm pretty sure that would work, and it only requires longer threaded rod to make the thing big enough for this project. Longer threaded rods, and being built in the first place. 
  • Something else
It's interesting to see that, if I include my newly learned PVC tech as a "thing", three of my five ideas include stuff from previous 120 "things".  I wonder if that's going to happen more and more.

Mould making was suspended until I had a project that actually required it, so perhaps this might be it.

But I do love working with PVC. It's just so easy to cut, file and drill. Mmm Polyvinyl chloride.

1 comment:

  1. Maybe try making the other half by eye, and then balancing the blade after the fact? Either with removal of more wood on the heavy side, or addition of weight on the light side.

    Carpenters have a form following rigs that they use to match moldings & curves in walls and the like, maybe one of those would help to?

    ReplyDelete

Popular Posts