Carving Wood Blades

[taylorp035]

Or maybe use a sawsall with a long blade and maybe a rail on the opposit side to keep the blade flat

I used a sawsall a lot for my blades.  It definitely cuts down on the time. 

I bet someone could make a set of blades pretty fast with a bandsaw/sawsall, a spindle sander, and a beltsander/hand sanding.

For Dragonfly III, I good place to start the blade after you have your square board is to cut the flat side/ wind facing side first.  Then go on and cut the airfoil by connecting the leading edge and the trailing edge.  It is really quite easy.

For your first blade set, it might be a good idea to have a non-twisted blade and/or skip the angle that makes the narrow tip.  Or, just follow some pictures of someone else's blades ( I am sure there are plenty of volunteers on here that can help you in that department.)

[fabricator]

A tool I found extremely useful for getting things nice and flat and for blending lines together is a in line body file type pneumatic sander, you can get 36 grit stick on sheets they remove a lot of wood in a hurry and itg is pretty easy to make the flat side really flat, also I have a heavy duty porter cable DA sander, with 36 grit pads it really makes short work of blending.

[taylorp035]

I once saw some 16 grit paper before for a DA sander 

[TomW]

I once saw some 16 grit paper before for a DA sander 

That stuff must look like gravel glued to paper

[fabricator]

When you are looking at a laminated block of wood 16 inches wide 9 feet long and 3 inches thick that contains a wind mill blade, those 16 grit pads would look pretty good.

[freejuice]

Currently on my blades for the 17 footer, I used a power planer for about 80% of the work...at the root area I use a sawzall in the radius area, cutting kerfs about inch apart almost down to the full blade depth. then I use a mallet and chisel to break out the chunks close to the blade edge, but in the thciker areas I use a hatchet..it breaks those kerfs out fast, then If finish this area out with a belt sander.

[taylorp035]

That stuff must look like gravel glued to paper Cheesy

It was pretty much.  Very sparse rocks that were a good 1/8" in diameter with some super industrial glue.  I wish I had a picture

[JMaris]

I know this thread is 6 months old or so, but after reading it, I think you guys have given me the courage to cut my own blades out of wood as well. THanks for giving me the pep talk that you didn't know you were giving!

[JW]

I recently stumbled across Reynolds number after studying mach 1 thru a nozzle velocity an I was corrected.

"Nope, it's a different number, the Reynolds number defines turbulence at different rates of flow across different types of surfaces."

I then quickly realized that this is applies to wind turbine blades. 

https://www.fieldlines.com/index.php?topic=127799.0

https://www.otherpower.com/bladecarving.html

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/BGH/reynolds.html