blades from engineered lumber

[toothy]

I am in the process of building a 10 foot mill, a 17'er seemed a little daunting but is the one I'll be building next.

Has anyone ever used engineered lumber as blade material?

I was thinking of parallel strand lumber (AKA, Paralam) or laminated veneer lumber (AKA, LVL)or some others material by a different trade name with a slightly different technology.

These engineered wood products offer dimensional stability with a possible weight penalty, but might look really cool.

I went to the local lumber purveyor and didn't like the selection of natural wood products, and the stuff I cut is not dry enough yet.

Thanks for your consideration

Wade

[vawtman]

Those are designed to carry a load not flung around in circles.For that small a turbine why bother?

 My .01 worth.

[wdyasq]

I'll agree with Mark but also state there were some college engineers who built some trying to compete with FRP blades. - Maybe eastern Canada area?

I don't know the result.

Ron

[RobC]

My first mill had 11ft dia blades made from paralam and it worked good until the tower collapsed. The next set of blade were made from pvc pipe and were lousy. Currently I am using blades made from Baltic birch plywood. One thing I would recommend is that if  you use paralam check it for small cracks on a regular basis you don't want water finding a place to soak in. You can find info in my Diary. RobC

[toothy]

Thanks for the input.

I did searches but never thought to try "plywood blades", I know it's the same stuff.

I also didn't think of the moisture absorption aspect. Thanks

The reason I was thinking of going this way is that the lumber yard is 1/2 mile from the house and the next one over 100 miles away. I also think I can talk the local yard out of some laminated veneer lumber for free. When they sit around for a while they get ugly looking and I don't think they can sell them. The nice thing about laminated veneer lumber is it's already over 1.5 inches thick, so no gluing just cut and carve.

The boss (AKA wife) has informed me that we have to go Christmas shopping, so I will look around Anchorage for some standard lumber.

Thanks again

Wade

[Daniel S]

If your going to use lumber, make sure you cover it with some form of epoxy paint. If you don't, the wood will swell in rainy weather and your turbine will be useless.