| After two months of fighting blade design flaws, my wife finally figured it out. Not wanting to carve blades, I tried several designs of my own making and nothing seemed to give my new windmill project just what it needed for rotation. My first two blade prop shattered when the tower came down in a storm (learned alot about tower design from that one). My second was a three blade hub I made and attached several versions of flat, straight blades which could be adjusted for pitch at the hub. This started up great but had very low RPM. Finally, my wife ( who had up until now been my biggest obstacle in getting my windmill up in the air) described what she thought would be the ideal blade with some sort of concave faces. I gave it some thought and decided that I couldn't make it so it wasn't feasible so I promptly shrugged her off. Shortly after this, I came across Zubbly's pictures of his PVC blades and quickly made one from some scrap I had around. My wife said "That's it!" The initial tests were less than favorable but I could see that the concept was fine but the fabrication left something to be desired. I finally took the scraps from the cutting of this test blade and attached them to my three blade hub I had previously made and had instant success. Immediately got approx. 75 RPM with just a breath of breeze (approx. 5 knots) and saw it go upwards of 200 RPM with slightly stronger gusts. For the time, effort, and expense involved, this is an excellent blade material and should be considered by anyone trying to start out. The main moral of the story though is to listen to your wife once in a while. If she has some stake in your "hobby" it makes life alot easier. :)
Jim
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