Barrel Blades made, Mine work good so far.

[nothing to lose]

Well, I use the kids digital camera and can't find it today, so the pics I upload are what I could splice together on the scanner

Has anyone else tried the barrel blades like we talked about in other blade posts before? I built a quicky set in about an hour or so last night. So far my best working  blade set! And I have less wind now too.

First I'll say this was a quick shot at making these, fast and dirty, nothing fancy, and they are the best working blades I have had so far. They are badly off balance and mounted poorly to the gennie, they still startup pretty easy and are the only ones that have ran in the high 12V range in such low winds, and also hitting over 15V in medium decent wind. My PCV 2 and 4 bladers would be sitting dead in even heavier winds. As a mater of fact  My 4 blader I took off (made from 4" green sewer pipe) to mount these last night was sitting dead all night, these tried to start up even as I was mounting them.

 Today I will take them down and balance them, or just make a second set first while these are still up since there are working now.

What I did was to first cut 4 blanks, over 6" wide and more than 25" long. I squared up the blanks so they hung over the edge on all for sides and mounted them to 2 boards. The boards are 25" long X 6" X 1/2 each. Actually 5 1/2" wide, you know milled lumber is always small. I held the blanks together and drilled through them for screw holes with the cheapy drill press.

Once I had the 4 blanks screwed down as tight as I could get them to the boards I ran them though a 10" cheapy table saw. That gave me pretty much 4 blanks almost exactly the same, 5 1/2" wide X 25" long with straight and squared ends and sides.

Then I took the Large Bulky Sawzall and cut the shape I wanted through all 4 blanks and the 2 boards at once. Make sure none of the screws are in the way, if they are drill a new holes then move the screw.

 I broke my blade for the jigsaw (cutting a woodburner) and could not find the spares or I would have used it and got better cuts.

Below is what the shape of the blades are basically. This is the wood template I will use for the next set once I clean up the rough cuts and do some sanding.

I will most likely try using my router (if it still works) and screw down a little over sized blank to this. I should be able to router out 4 blades at once and everyone be nearly the same.

For mounting these fast last night I already had about a 5"X5" square block I been using as a mount. I took of the blades from that, they did not work well. To this flat wood hub I screwed down the trailing edge of the blade tight with 1 screw. This held the blade cntered as I wanted on the square block. I then swung it out of they way and screwed down the next blad with 1 screw also. I did all 4 blades that way. Then I pushed 2 blades in a row back in place. The leadin edge of one blade lapped over the trailing edge of the next. I drilled a hole through those and ran in a screw loose. I had a small wedge I had cut that was about 23-25 degree angle, I simply slid that under the top leading edge and added some more screws to hold that angle, not tight! The trailing edge IS tight, the leading edge simply pokes out forward. I did that with all 4 blades. This gave me somewhere close to 25 degree angle at the hub.

 I have about a 50" rotor now.

To mount this to the gennie, the gennie has a round 3/4" plywood hub hammered onto it. Center hole drilled small then hammered on force fit. It works well for the test rig, but I would not used it for a real mill. Anyway I just took 4 long wood screws and screwed the new rotor onto that round hub centered the best I could in the dark fumbling around.

I knew the blades were out of balance but I didn't have much time for anything last night and I wanted to do SOMETHING anyway just to be doing it, so this was it! I am really surpised this set is working so well! The balance is off enough that swinging the heavy blade half way up the left side and letting go it swings almost half way up the other side, not just a simple drift to the bottom! It swings back and forth too a couple times. It catches the wind good enough to over come the off centered weight and the cogging from the gennie too!

Below is the piice that was cut out of the blade. I think this can be used as is for a mini mill still. It is about 14 3/4" long so with hub added it should still be about 30" rotor itself.

The barrel I used has been sitting in the yard for many years! It shows NO sign of ageing or drying out like PVC sewer pipes will do in just a couple years. The barrel sides are stiff enough to hold up to the wind yet a little flexable, might survive a bird impact?  With a little more work I think these barrels would make super great blades for the smaller mills (about 50" rotor maybe more) and should be able to get at least 8 blades from one barrel full sized plus all those shorter peices I showed for mini mills of around 30" rotors. I pay $6 for these plastic barrels (last time I bought some)so I am looking at about $0.40 per blade if you count the 30"rotors, or $0.75 if you just count the 50" rotors.

I am geusing 8 blades here since I cut mine from about half a barrel last night with some left over. I think if laying out the cuts better and wasteing less materail it might be possible to get 10-12 blanks for the blades.

Something I will do but didn't yet is round the leading edge also and bring the trailing edge to a point. Right now they are just however they came out when cut flat

then left to bend back to the curved shape again. And I really need to balance this set!!

As for mounting these much better than I did, I think the fan hubs from many central heat and air units would work well. Most are pretty strong and solid, BUT most I have are counter clockwise rotation so I would have to cut the blades backwards. Also I have an off sized shaft on my test genie and nothing fits it. Japanese motor, and I don't want to pay $20 for a drill bit I might use 3 times!

Better wood hubs could be used also. That's what I will use for the next set or to re-do this set. 23-25degree angle seems good. If I'd have had more time last night I would have made a 3 blader instead, but I didn't have the time to make a new hub mount and stuff, so I just used the 4 blade mount I already had. Making 4 of these blades at once is as fast as making 1 blade once you screw them all down to the wood support.

[RogerAS]

Hi,

I build a 3 blader last summer using a very similar techique.

Mine also is spinning way ahead of any other. I should say was, 'cuse it was up on a 10' alumium test pole. A very odd gust of whipping wind came thru N AR last sat. and bent it over backwards!

Anyway, these type of blades work good for me.

RogerAS

Yeah I'm still alive.

[MelTx]

 Hello  I have been using the food grade barrels to make blades for a while now.The 30 gallon one seems to be the right size.yuo get about 10 blades from each barrel.I make them about 5" wide and about 24" long.Yesterday i made some blades 10" wide and put some more mags inside the motor-alt seemed to get more power.I thought the wider blades would start in a lite wind, of course today there is no wind at all.Made the hub out of a 10" dia round piece of steel plates.the arms out of 3/16" thich 1 1/4 wide flat iron.Using 1/4 bolts to hold them on.The wood blades used to fly-apart when there would be large gusts, but i think the plactic one are better.I am still working on my 2 rotor alt but so far they seem to work on this as well....

          Hope this helps

[RobC]

Okay I'm game I'll give it a try.  Thanks for the incentive RobC

[nothing to lose]

I found out where the digital camera is, kid had it stuck in a shelf on her computer monitor about 4" from where I was looking at one point, just didn't see it in there

I'll try to get pics of mine flying today before taking it down and pics of the blades after I take it down.

I see those blades in the pic are straight and flat. After all the reading and such about various blades, pitch, taper, tip speeds etc.. I choose to cut mine as kinda shown, basically wide near the root, about half way out they cut to near half width, and rounded tips.

Due to using a large bulky sawzall where I could not even see the line I was trying to cut on and the crappy work area and holding methodes etc.. I did not cut mine exactly as intended. My rounded tip is pointed even! I will be cleaning up this set so they work even better and the next set will be cut better to begin with.

One thing I learned from this set is they start up easy and spin far faster than any of the others I made so far (which I did a better job on also) so I am sure I am on the right track with these. Even far out of balance they started up all day yesterday better in lower winds than my well balanced ones of other types have in any winds (including hard winds). The mill does stop at times of course when no wind or bad wind as it is setup in probably the worst posibale way, short tower close to tall trees, and  shakes and wobbles around a bit now because of the bad balance. However most of the time I look at it I see it spinning, or if stopped I see it spin up in a minute or so. I think about 5 minutes was the longest I saw it not turning in one sitting all day yesterday. This is by far the best and cheapest blade set so far of what I have tried.

I don't know what my mill is producing for actaull usable power in amps (if any) but these blades are turning it fast enough almost all day yesterday that the metter showed high 12V almost all day yesterday, alot of the time I was in mid to high 13V, and I was hitting near 15V pretty often. The battery I have this connected to right now is junk, it wants to settle in at around 10.5 volts. I had it as high as 13V for awhile but then it starts dropping slowly and eventually if not being charged for awhile will drop to the 10.5V. SInce I mounted this set of blades I rarely see the meter reading the battery lower than 11.8V, and it's always above 11V somewhere. That means this blade set is almost always running the mill. Yesterday was a pretty calm day here with low winds compared to the last few weeks.

I have run a 12V flouresent light directly off this mill yesterday using these blades, I don't know the ratings for it though, but I disconnected the battery and connected the light and it worked. My 12V fan runs faster directly from the mill with these blades also, it ran slow at times with other blades, Alot faster now and also far more often.

Now that I know I have a working set of blades, or for sure can make a set now, I will build another motor conversion. I have another motor exactly the same as the one I am flying already. This one I will build a custom armature for instead of cutting up the one in it, then I can make several different types and and just change them out to compare them.

[gumshine]

where would the best place be to get good usable barrels?  

Is there a good reliable source for these anywhere?  Or should I just keep my eyes peeled.

I like this idea.  I think even I can do this.

thanks

[ghurd]

Industrial surplus stores, large bakeries, dry cleaners.

Most have somebody taking them, a system. Money probably changes hands. Asking for 1 would seem less of a problem to them than asking for 10.

G-

[gumshine]

thanks

[nothing to lose]

Well I am back, was gone a little while.

Around here where I am at you can find plastic barrels being sold lots of places, normally $6 a barrel. Look anyplace that does like salvage hardware and such. I think the black plastic ones I have were used for liquid salts like for winter road spraying here in SO MO.  As I recall when I was at the city water and sewer they had I think blue barrels, something like clorine for water treatment was in them.

I cut up a blue barrel also now. I like the black best so far.

While I was playing with various blades and setups recently, the 9v square battery went dead in my digital meter. NO PROBLEM, I had a weak low power mill spinning slow and running about 10V so I popped the 9V transistor battery on it for a couple minutes and new battery, well at least revived

First it was so dead a touch to the tounge was just a bad taist (yes I still test those that way) after a little wind charging and letting it sit for a for minutes I got a nice sharp buzzing tingle like an almost fresh battery has.

 Beware your not supposed to do that, and they could possibly explode if charged too fast or maybe over charged or whatever, but about 10-12Vdc from a low low power mill fixed mine fine.