Maybe a new way to make fibreglass blade plugs?

[gizmo]

Trev from Foundry & Fibreglass ( http://www.thebackshed.com/foundryandfibreglass/ )sells aluminum turbine hubs to suit the F&P smartdrives, and asked me to help him build a blade set to suit. I used the Warlock calculator to generate the figures for a 2.4 meter 3 blade turbine, and then spent a couple of hours CAD'ing it all up.

Next day I used the laser cutter to cut out 100 ribs from 12mm MDF. Each rib has a 30 by 1.2mm slot, angled correctly for each ribs distance from center.





The ribs all slide onto a stainless steel strip, and this should hold each rib at the correct angle.





Now its just up to Trev to glue it all together, apply a little filler, some sanding and he should have a very accurate blade blank. He'll use this to make a fibreglass mould.

Hopefully it will work. If it does, we'll look at making a bigger set for the dual stator F&P windmills.

More pictures and story here - http://www.thebackshed.com/Windmill/FORUM1/forum_posts.asp?TID=800&PN=1

Glenn

[wdyasq]

Good Looking start there Glen.

Best of luck,

Ron

[TomW]

Glenn;

Looks like a great project.

You guys have entirely too much fun down under there.

Cheers.

TomW

[Spdlmt150]

Nice work. I've been wondering about alternate methods for making blades. When the time comes, please show the fiberglassing process. I would be interested in how it all turns out.

[richhagen]

Nice work there.  I am not familiar with the methods of making the plugs, but the cnc work looks nice.  I am envious of that laser there.  I would be milling or routing for hours.  

When I carve my smaller blades, I calculate the profiles incrementally out,  divide the top and bottom surfaces, and adjust for the tool offsets based upon the direction of travel, a little bit different carving from one piece of wood, but your work looks familiar to me.  Rich

[s4w2099]

Really cool, Ive always wanted to do that. The way I though about it was to do it with foam plugs. But heck, your way is cool.

[healerenergy]

This is really cool work and also looks like the blades are going to be powerful. Is the CNC machine home made or a commercial one.  The work it does looks finely detailed and I'll wager the program must be pretty powerful. What kind of a laser are you using it looks huge. Of coarse when it comes to lasers I know about as much as one could put on a postage stamp in large print.    

George  

[domwild]

Wekk done! Congrats! So much fun should be made illegal.

Regards,