Sail blade design survey

[Kansas Rust Buzzard]

Lots of variables here, power efficiency, cost, longevity, and parts availability. I have taken down a lot of mills, never a Woodmanse with a good wheel yet, Aermotors hold up very well, so do Fairburys and the Zephyrs mentioned above, Monitors so so and Dempsters a little worse. A shocking numbers of Goodhues still have wheels left but everything else is shot but, oddly, probably the best wheels I find are Curries, although rusty and with bad gears, those wheels seem to hold up better than anything in my area, they even survive the fall of the tower admirably. I am not recommending anyone go buy one to pump with but I am always shocked that a bargain basement priced wheel can survive so well. I suspect in different areas, different mills did better because of local conditions.

[windybob]

I would be interested in one of those Goodhues that everything is shot on.

[Kansas Rust Buzzard]

Do you not have any in your area? They are pretty common here, nice heavy channel iron used in the wheels, usually the only time the wheel is shot is when the shaft drops down and it rubs the edges off on the tower and that is fairly common but you rarely see a sail gone. Someone gave me some gears that are a perfect match for the small ones so I hope to get a couple fixed up one of these days, just got to broach them for the keyway. I will post some pics of some I got if the weeds are not too bad, might need a snow to pack them down?

[Dempster]

This evening I ran across a sales brochure of the Ames Windmill Wheel, invented and patented by our very own Windybob. It's really interesting reading. The construction of the wheel seems very robust, and also interchangeable. Hopefully Windybob can chime in to share his thoughts and experiences of his new design.

Lance

[windybob]

KRB, none here at all.

Lance, more on the wheel later. Been postboned because life got in the way. lol

[Smax]

Thanks to all that gave input on the wheels. No clear winner. The star 37 was mentioned more than any other. Would like to see one of those ames windy bob specials
Steve

[windybob]

Steve, for the record, after I designed and started building them, I never quite got into regular production, because like I said, life got in the way. However, jigs, fixtures, and other proto's and other things are done, just need to tweak a few things. PM me your address, I'll send you a pamphlet.


Hey Paul V, Find a spot on the forum for a couple of banner ads. I will rent one. You could rent it for like 2 weeks at a time, or maybe a month. Would help with the income and maintenance of the site also.

[Smax]

Bob on sent

[Smax]

Pm

[Kansas Rust Buzzard]

On the Star 37, some place online, I saw a chart that determined efficiency of fans for ventilation, it was mostly on blade cup and relative size but also had some calculations on how the rounded corners affected it. I wish I could find it again because a fellow could figure the radius efficiency over a normal square cornered sail.