Making the Blades

One of the first stages in building the turbine was to make the blades. The blades were carved out of wood, we used pine from a wood supplier just up the road from engineering. Each blade is carved out of a 1200mm x 150mm x 37mm plank.

The shaping is done in 4 principal stages.

1) Cutting the tapered shape - thick base, thin tip.


2) Carving the twisted windward face

Picture: Sylvie sanding down the twisted windward face of a blade and Mathew marking out a magnet mould.

3) Carving the thickness

Picture: Paul carving the thickness, luckily we had an electric plane to make this a bit easier.

4) Carving the curved shape on the back of the blade.

5) Cutting out the blade disks and fitting it all together.

Picture: Don holding the finished blades held together by the blade disks and quite a few screws.