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blades
By Propwash, Section Wind Posted on Sat Nov 05, 2005 at 02:02:30 AM MST
making blades with thickness planer

Has anyone tried making blades using a jig and a thickness planer? Seems like there are a lot of clever folks on here and someone must have tried it.

blades | 15 comments (15 topical)

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by erichtopp on Fri Nov 04, 2005 at 07:56:36 PM MST

Hummmm, I know one thing that works very well for making propellor blades accurately. It is a propellor making machine. The guys who build wooden propellors for aircraft use them. The prop making machine carves 1 blade at a time. So you just keep turning the hub and carving blades. Try googling the words for propellor making with aircraft. A number of my friends have made wooden propellors for aircraft using these machines and have had excellent results. Can't see any reason why this won't work for wind turbines as the blades are just larger. Oh yes forgot one thing, try helicopter blade leading edge tape on your wooden blades. They should last a long long time.....and don't forget to balance the wood blades when you're done.

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by rotornuts on Fri Nov 04, 2005 at 08:52:26 PM MST

there is absolutely no reason you couldn't make blades with an appropriate fixture and a thickness planer. I can envision the fixture in my head right now. All you'd need to do is a little finish sanding to blend in the cuts. If you start at your tips with a tapered fixture that you can rotate and replacable sides to provide a surface for the drive roller. then the leading edge is the only surface you may have to do by hand.

The fixture may be a bit of a pain to build though.

Mike

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by elvin1949 on Fri Nov 04, 2005 at 10:07:02 PM MST

Mike
My memory is not what it used to be,but
doesnt Dan rough his in with a hand held power planer.
later
elvin

[ Parent ]

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by Propwash on Sat Nov 05, 2005 at 04:29:09 AM MST

I am quite sure I saw mention of a hand held power planer on one of the Otherpower projects but I havn't seen any mention of thickness planer use. I think for a thickness planer to work you would have to alter the blade design a bit. I don't know enough about blade design to know what can and can't be done. I may try a litte experimenting. You may have to make more than one jig but once you got the jigs built you could make blades for everyone in the family for Christmas.

[ Parent ]

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by sahlein on Sat Nov 05, 2005 at 05:33:56 AM MST

You know, they make blades that will cut cove moulding in one pass.
Joe

[ Parent ]

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by DanB on Sat Nov 05, 2005 at 07:51:10 AM MST

We (Scott, who makes blades for us) use a large/heavy planer to:

get the thickness of the blades right before carving
to carve the front side. The blades go through on a 'sled' that holds them at the correct angle and it works very nicely/quickly.

then the back side is finished by hand with a power planerer and hand tools.

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by finnsawyer on Sat Nov 05, 2005 at 09:18:49 AM MST

Since you asked! You could mount your piece of wood on a hinged booklike structure. This is then driven through the planer/molder by a screw. As the assembly moves a roller rides over a linear cam and causes the "book" to open up putting a twist in the board and creating the windward side. There will obviously be an increase in the surface width as the angle increases, which may or may not be desirable. One could then do the curved surface by hand. On the other hand, if one can tolerate a constant width for the blade, it may be possible to have a blade crafted and the curved side done using the molder by simply passing the proto-blade through the machine between two spring loaded rollers. I mentioned molder because you need some maximum space between the planer blades and the rollers (mine has seven inches). You would probably also have to modify the planer/molder, since the height of the board above the blades when going in would get too large. The trailing roller and frame work would be unaffected.

Another possible way to do this would be on a band saw type sawmill. On numerous occasions I've had logs twist due to clamping failure. The blade usually keeps moving during these failures. The trick would be to devise a cam arrangement to turn the piece of wood in a controlled manner as the blade moves through the piece. The wood would be mounted on pivots on the ends, the cam or guide would be mounted along side the piece of wood (or to it's bottom), and as the carriage moves, an assembly mounted to it follows the guide and causes the wood to twist in a controlled manner. Not out of the question.
GeoM

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by RobC on Sat Nov 05, 2005 at 11:29:46 AM MST

I think its a great Idea. I have been thinking along the same lines for a while myself. RobC

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by Propwash on Sun Nov 06, 2005 at 07:06:38 PM MST

I have laid out a blade on a 2 x 8 and been doing some studying. The sled as Dan calls it will need a twist built into it as well as the required taper. I spent most of yesterday and today working on my hub and discs so I haven't made any shavings yet. It seems like I'm always reminded that I need new belts for my drill press on Sunday afternoons when no parts stores are open. This made drilling two 2 3/4 inch holes in the 3/8 thick discs an all afternoon project(thanks to an old tube of belt dressing I finally got them drilled). I have a pretty good idea of how to build my sled so maybe I"ll get a crack at it this week after work. I'll take some pics so if it works I can show the results. I did a search and found a site where a fellow took half the table off a jointer and made some blades. He exposed the cutter head and used it to cut out the root area. I am terrified of a jointer with the table on let alone off so I think I'll not go that route. Thanks for all the great ideas and input.

[ Parent ]

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by asheets on Mon Nov 07, 2005 at 01:36:25 PM MST

seems to me that if one makes a lot of blades (like our hosts here) that it might be most efficient to make some custom cutting blades for a molding machine, like the one Norm Abrahms uses on New Yankee Workshop for duplicating antique trim...
_____________________________

Alan Sheets

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by Propwash on Mon Nov 07, 2005 at 08:22:59 PM MST

I spent most of the night in the basement with my dewalt planer annoying my wife while she tried to hear the tv. I made two sleds. One for the back and one for the front. The backside cut came out quite nice. When cutting the frontside my planer hangs up near the root area further away from the root with each cut. I could get about two thirds of the blade through the planer before I would have to start backing of the cutter head to allow the root of the blade to pass under the feed rollers and cutter head. I had to keep count of the amount of turns that I backed off and then add one turn to that amount for the next pass. Other than the root area not being deep enough the one blade that I produced came out quite nice. I'll try to get some pics on here for you guys tomorrow night.

[ Parent ]

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by Propwash on Wed Nov 09, 2005 at 04:39:34 AM MST

Here are a few random pictures of blades made on a planer. I left the stock 8' so I would not have a problem with snipes.

[ Parent ]

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by rotornuts on Wed Nov 09, 2005 at 10:05:27 PM MST

That's absolutely fantastic. Count yourself as one of those clever folks.

Mike

[ Parent ]

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by wdyasq on Thu Nov 10, 2005 at 07:39:08 AM MST

I kept wondering how he was going to do that -... My thickness planer has a 30" long bed.

It didn't occur to me he may be using one of those small "portable" planers. I remember the first time I saw one of those it was being used to thickness plane some long beams. It was happily crawling along while the beam stayed stationary.

Thinking in a corner,

Ron
Adventure is just bad planning." -- Roald Amundsen
[ Parent ]

Re: blades (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by Propwash on Thu Nov 10, 2005 at 01:44:00 PM MST

I did take off one of the tables to keep it from hanging up so soon in the root area but it didn't help that much. The root area cleaned up quite quickly with a few swipes with a disc sander. I have not made a jig yet to do the trailing edge but I am quite sure that can be done as well. It is quite rewarding to watch a blade develop as it comes through the planer. I probably could have made two sets of blades by now by hand but this is much more fun. If my mill works out I'm sure my buddies will be needing some blades manufactured anyhow.

[ Parent ]

blades | 15 comments (15 topical)

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