Travis Johnson
Member
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So what sayeth the experts? Do you think its feasible to build a working wooden windmill? By working I mean able to withstand the buffering of the wind, apply power and do something useful with it?
Everyone knows on here that I am a machinist and can weld and fabricate, but even at the price my company pays for steel, its kind of prohibitive for an all steel windmill. I was thinking of making the majority of my windmill out of wood and then using steel for only the parts that really need to be steel.
I was thinking of building a verticle axis windmill (VAWM) and then building the tower out of wood as well. Maybe a 16 foot section 8 x 8, then another section 16 feet high 6 x 6, and then a final section 16 foot section 4 x 4 so it was 48 feet high in all.
As for the "work", I really don't need electricity. What little bit it would produce would do very little to drop my electric bill. Instead I would like to do something with heat. I had two ideas really. Coupling the windmill so that it was running an air compressor. I could use the air inside my shop, but more importantly I could encircle the compressor with water tubes and run that water into my radiant floor heating system (low temp water).
Another idea is to use the windmill to run a plunger. This plunger would compress hydraulic oil out through a relief valve. Squeezing that oil through such a tiny orifice heats oil up very fast. If I take that hydraulic oil and coil the hydraulic line inside a water tank, it should heat the water up as well. I could then transfer that heated water to my radiant floor.
So what do you think? Would a wooden windmill work, and would some of my ideas for converting mechanical motion into heat energy also work?
Everyone knows on here that I am a machinist and can weld and fabricate, but even at the price my company pays for steel, its kind of prohibitive for an all steel windmill. I was thinking of making the majority of my windmill out of wood and then using steel for only the parts that really need to be steel.
I was thinking of building a verticle axis windmill (VAWM) and then building the tower out of wood as well. Maybe a 16 foot section 8 x 8, then another section 16 feet high 6 x 6, and then a final section 16 foot section 4 x 4 so it was 48 feet high in all.
As for the "work", I really don't need electricity. What little bit it would produce would do very little to drop my electric bill. Instead I would like to do something with heat. I had two ideas really. Coupling the windmill so that it was running an air compressor. I could use the air inside my shop, but more importantly I could encircle the compressor with water tubes and run that water into my radiant floor heating system (low temp water).
Another idea is to use the windmill to run a plunger. This plunger would compress hydraulic oil out through a relief valve. Squeezing that oil through such a tiny orifice heats oil up very fast. If I take that hydraulic oil and coil the hydraulic line inside a water tank, it should heat the water up as well. I could then transfer that heated water to my radiant floor.
So what do you think? Would a wooden windmill work, and would some of my ideas for converting mechanical motion into heat energy also work?