[Vwdiesel] Windmill

[Travis Gottschalk]

Also to update the few that were asking about the windmill although it isn't a Diesel topic. The 40 ft high windmill I helped my brother take down is now put up. He split the tower in half and setup the lower part after making sure it was braced square and put the posts in the ground and cemented them in making sure it was all level. That was taken back down then and put back together and the head (fan, gearbox, tail) was also put on. There were then some hinges bolted on one set of lets and the other end of the tower toward the head was put on a sawhorse so it wasn't resting on the fan blades. Then a folcrum was put up (post in the ground and it hinges on that). Then a cable from the tower just below the head to the folcrum and then another cable from the folcrum to a truck. Needs to be set up so when the tower is up the folcrum isn't on the ground yet so it has to be the right length of cables and folcrum. Then another rope on the other end to prevent it going over to far and to help put in bolts. Once up you bolt the oposite side of the hinges and then pull over some to unbolt the hinges and then you can bolt that side up. The fan is I think an 8 ft size. The largest of windmils were 80 ft high with a 20 foot fan wheel. The gearbox is so big that to put oil in it there is a ladder on the gearbox as well. The fans are in a way governed so they don't spin out of control as the have a brake on them. They take oil in the gear box and my brother put some grease zerts in for a couple other areas. 
 
The big thing with windmils is the towers are the easier and cheaper part as there isn't any wear part on there. The heads have gears and bushings that need to be tended to once in a while. Several of the heads the makers only were in business a few years and parts you can't get. Aeromotor is basically one of the last that you can still get parts for and unless you have that it almost isn't worth getting as everything from the governer/brake to the bushings can be worn and can't be fixed and could become unsafe to where the fan shaft could wear through and break or self distruct in higher winds. 
 
That being said sometime I might have to take a drive in Texas and California to find an 80 windmill since taht is about the only places they were put up. Just to have the biggest. We figure the tower alone would weigh around 1600 lbs and would have to be taken apart totally to haul. The fan also would have to be taken apart if it is 20 ft. Hardest thing would be getting the gearbox on the trailer unless someone had a tractor or forklift there. And the tipping over of the tower would require a really large folcrum. I don't know if anyone is alive that has done and 80ft without a crane but when they were put up they only had horses in most cases. You would need a large enough vehicle/s to be able to set it down without it dragging it forward and ruining a rather expensive tower/head since you would own it at that point.
 
Sorry for the long post for those that don't care much about them but it is kind of a cool history and not many can see how they were put up and taken down. Also the pictures of takedown didn't turn out. The trees and electric lines were the focus on the camera and the angle iron of the tower didn't show up enough. Don't know how the pictures of put up are yet. 
 
Travis G