 Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me. |
Forum Index : Windmills : Making blades with a ChainSaw
  Page 6 of 6 |
|||||
| Author | Message | ||||
oztules Guru  Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
They look like a very nice set there... smooth as 
I hope they perform as well as they look. Mine out perform the requirements of the electric car by about 20 hours per day.... the mill is stopped automatically by the car when charged.... they just sit there most of the time 
good work.........oztules ..........oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
||||
niall1 Senior Member  Joined: 20/11/2008 Location: IrelandPosts: 331 |
this is a bit off thread but its a kind of by product of the origional ...using a chainsaw.... idea.... 
these blanks were 2.4m long and 400mm at the root so the saw bar was a bit short for trying to run down with jigs ,so we tried to do cross cuts to see how it worked out... turned out to be very easy , by the fourth blank we were cutting very close to the lines and removing a lot of excess wood by the time we were doing the last blade it was tempting to do a lot of cuts maybe 1 inch apart incorporating any knots into the cuts (pulverising knots is a very satisfing part of it ) the saw leaves nice big gaps , and a good cut line between the wood sections so a lot of it ( the deepest cuts ) can be knocked out fairly cleanly with a hammer....good fun....  niall |
||||
| oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
Good stuff Niall, I followed the progress of the group for the 6 days and saw you there with the chainsaw. Do you think Hugh will have a go at the chainsaw part, or will he stick steadfastly to the drawknife do you think? I was a bit amazed that he let you at it with the chainsaw, but 2.4m blades 400mm across is a big bit of wood to contemplate by hand.... for a big chainsaw, it would be only a few minutes per side
..........oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
||||
SparWeb Senior Member Joined: 17/04/2008 Location: CanadaPosts: 196 |
Niall, It looks like you're having lots of fun! Knots in your wood? I hope they aren't too big! Steven T. Fahey |
||||
| niall1 Senior Member Joined: 20/11/2008 Location: IrelandPosts: 331 |
erm....... cant really comment for Hugh ...but i think he takes the approach .....if your really determined to go the power tool route to remove a lot of excess wood or available time is short (in our case we only had a few days) , safely use the most suited available tool .... kind of , if you must try it ......dont bring a blunt pen knife to a gun fight .....type of thing , if that makes sense ...
its a personal call then how you go about it ..  ., we had a spare blank to set up with and get a feel for it
apart from that the blades (from what i could see) were all worked on to the final line with drawknifes (where the blade wasnt to wide), hand planes , spoke shaves etc.....surprisingly very little power tools were used , even though we had them......a lot less high pitched noise in the carving area (theres a lot to be said for that )....the chainsawing was done outside now rumor has it Hugh was seen doing a cross cut or two.........but the light here can play tricks on your eyes and theres a lack of digital evidence .......so the status quo remains unchanged ......
ps...Steven , a late night or two as well ....  niall |
||||
| AllanS Regular Member  Joined: 05/06/2006 Location: Posts: 67 |
Hi Oztules, Is your grid-connect thingy legal in Australia? Does it lock into the grid-phase cleanly enough? Inverters are expensive and hard to make. I'm told the capacitors need replacing every 10 years or so, and that's not a job most people would be happy doing. On the other hand, your contraption is cheap and easy to make. It would need new bearings every few years, but that's about it. |
||||
eirbyte Newbie  Joined: 19/11/2008 Location: IrelandPosts: 16 |
This is an Irish/Scottish drawknife 
O I put the pixeled out part a bit to far to the left. This is a bit from a video will put the full clip on youtube unless Hugh hands over a large sum of cash. Will let you know. Education isn't everything; for a start it isn't an elephant. Spike Milligan BuildYourOwnWindTurbine.com |
||||
| niall1 Senior Member Joined: 20/11/2008 Location: IrelandPosts: 331 |
litigation it is then... ... so i,m off to find a hole to lie in ... its all oz,s fault anyway...........  niall |
||||
scoraigwind Newbie Joined: 23/09/2009 Location: United KingdomPosts: 21 |
Sorry to dash your hopes of an early retirement but I don't have any problem with being seen using a chainsaw for this purpose, in fact it was fun and fast. I don't advise carving blades with belt sanders. And I have seen some pretty slow progress made with a router on special guides. I like the drawknife in my vicinity because it allows my brain to work and my voice to be heard. But the wood we had to carve in this case was too wide for any of the drawknives available, and Niall saved us a lot of time by cross cutting it quickly like that. It seemed simpler than using guides to rip along the wood. But I suppose there was more tidying up to do afterwards. Hugh Piggott |
||||
| oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
...... Hugh wouldn't be wearing Nialls body by any chance would he?? Allan S. Sorry I'm late with this. The induction motor is legal (AS number etc), and the cable is AS certified as well.... so I guess it is legal to run the setup as a motor from a power point. It is naturally an islanding device, and cannot generate without the grid. It stops the moment it loses excitation... just how induction generators work without big excitation caps. Whilst it runs as a motor, there is no problem, it will be up to you and the power company to come up with a solution to legally feeding the grid with it. My company was fine with me testing it, and the grid tie mills I work with work exactly the same way. If I wanted to use it rather than testing it, I would be required to talk further with them. Go to the Breezy site for more info on how the companies can be approached and "normal" requirements. It is simple. breezy ...........oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
||||
| AllanS Regular Member Joined: 05/06/2006 Location: Posts: 67 |
Thanks, oztules. That Breezy site is very interesting. Can't say I like the look of 4 blades, but having them stall in high wind certainly is easier than furling, and side-stepping inverters and batteries etc is also brilliant. Are there any downsides to this approach? |
||||
imsmooth Senior Member Joined: 07/02/2008 Location: United StatesPosts: 214 |
I am curioius how many people have used the chainsaw method for carving blades since Oztules posted his original idea? I have to say that the blades I made turn when I don't even see the leaves moving at times. |
||||
| birdhouse Regular Member Joined: 27/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 63 |
i did! here's videos- front back thanks to oz for coming up with this idea! i wasn't looking forward to carving blades until i discovered his method. it works really well! my jigs took maybe an hour. i used a blade calculator from ed's page and copied it until i got close to the root, but still managed to get a twenty some degree angle for good start up. i'm still putting on the epoxy ext. thinking about putting carbon fiber on them since i have some scraps from a job. hoping to have a hub made soon for mounting. i don't have a lot of spare time, so progress has been slow. thanks! oh- fleece gloves are chainsaw proof right? i pee more than once before flushing, and don't have to flush at all up at the ranch! |
||||
| oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
Birdhouse, I get a kick every time I see someone having a go at this method. I still think it is the quickest way to build a blade from wood. I'm not sure it is worthwhile for sizes below 8 footers, but for my 4m blades I don't know if I would have had the patience to get to the end doing it the traditional way. It would take days. Thanks for the entertainment .........oztules PS. I might well have put a guide on the slide so you had better control over the blades position. EDIT: PPS.. them fleecy gloves, I'm not sure that's what they were designed for Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
||||
| birdhouse Regular Member Joined: 27/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 63 |
oz- happy to provide the entertainment! thanks too! i do quite a bit of wood working and have almost any tool imaginable for wood butchering, but personally hate milling very abstract shapes. this guide system was gold to me. i think i would have done it even with a 4 foot set. unless there was no twist in the blade. i actually chamfered the edges of my jig boards so the location of the saw was less important. in other words if you put a straight edge across my jig for the front side of the blade it would touch the full 1.5" of the 2x6 jig sides so as long as my guides stayed ontop of the jig the blades should turn out very similiar. i like the aux handle the irish are using. it takes some umph to push the saw. i'll bet the handle helps with this. (and adds a safety factor :) ) thanks again for the ingenuity! i pee more than once before flushing, and don't have to flush at all up at the ranch! |
||||
| Page 6 of 6 |
|||||
 Print this page |
 |
The Back Shed's forum code is written, and hosted, in Australia. | © JAQ Software 2025 |
