Made a new rotor

[FishbonzWV]

Decided to make a larger more accurate set of blades to use on a motor conversion I'm working on.

These use the full length of the plastic panels I've got.

Length is 38", root 8", tip 3", hub is 15", plastic is 1/4" thick.

Used a round over bit on the router to make the leading edge and a straight bit to shape the trailing edge to a sharp point.

Attached the trailing edge to the hub with two bolts and used a 4" machine screw to jack out the leading edge to 2 3/4" from the face of the hub.

They track almost perfectly which really surprised me because when I flexed the blades with the jack screw they curved forward about an inch at the tips.

Right now there's no load on them and they spin up nice. They are almost as fast as the shorter 5 blade unit.

Now I need to get the lathe work done on the rotor.

Fishbonz

[harrie]

very nice, what is the hub made out of??

[FishbonzWV]

It's 3/4" plywood bolted onto a 4" steel pulley that fits the shaft. This keeps it running true.

[FishbonzWV]

Windy today...45 to 55 mph gusts.

This is what I came home to

The guy to the green one wound around the rotor locking it down. The red one is still going strong!

Had a common anchor point between the two and it pulled out so it's holding up the red one for now. The masts go about 8 feet down the back side of a wall and I had a cable around the green one at the top of the wall but not the red one. Guess that's what is keeping it up. Still blow'n hard! Looks like tommorow before fixup.

What fun!

[TomW]

fish;

Well, at least it doesn't look like any heavy destruction occurred. Hope you get it back up soon.

I still haven't found blade #3 from the one of mine that grenaded last year. Pretty rough terrain here tho could be 5 feet from it in the timber not see it even tho it is white.

Good luck getting it fixed up.

Cheers.

TomW

[FishbonzWV]

No damage to the mills. The red one was hanging at about 45 degrees by the guy to the green one. Put some concrete in the ground today!

By the way, that's my 1954 Feathercraft in the yard and my 1953 Ford tractor is at the farm. I like old machines too.

Fishbonz