Hello everyone!
Here are a bunch of pictures of a blade i have just completed to hopefully have molded by a company that is willing to produce my blades for me in a carbon fibre/fibre glass composite.
The need has basically arrived by my own needs to be able to sell some generators with the blades also. Even locally where i live, i have been requested to make other people generators, however, what has held me back is the time consuming part of making the blades. Nothing definate, but seems good so far, the final cost in the end product will determine if i go ahead with the produced blades.
I have had much success using Alton Moore's program to make my blades from, and work extremely well with my induction conversions. I also beleive that the blades will be quite adaptable to the dual rotor machines. Very little seems to be available on the market for the more serious homebrew machine in blade availability, and many out there do not want to carve their own blades. I think this blade will be quite adaptable as the hub section will be able to be drilled for various mountings.
The blade i intend to use as a 3 blade prop. The blade is 5 feet long, so will give a 10 foot blade set. TSR is seven, with a tip angle of between 1.5 and 2 degrees, tapering to a root angle of 21.8 degrees at the second last station. The last station was reserved for the mounting hub. The hub section is 3 inches thick by 5 1/2 inches wide,the end is cut at 60 degrees for 3 blade mounting, with the widest part of the blade at 8 1/2 inch tapering to 4 3/4 inch at the tip. The blade thickness at the tip is 3/8 inch thick and the whole curved blade is carved to a usa35b airfoil profile. There has been some special modifications to the design which (with the help of some very knowledgable people on the irc) should prove out to be excellent in performance. As it is now, i know it will work with my conversions very well.
Here are the pics (still not the best camera man around), and i tried most angles to give you the idea of how the blade looks with its profiles.
Almost forgot. I made this blade with laminated pine. The blade has to be painted with a high temp paint for the molding process. I chose to use engine enamel as it is good for 500 degrees.
Hope you enjoyed the post and will let you know how everything goes and if i carry through with having the blades made.
Having fun as usual
zubbly