[Vwdiesel] Windmill

[mark shepherd]

Travis, I'm sure there's diesel content in there somewhere, even only if; 
it'll be conserving diesel in the future. [Grinding canola??]
Any pictures of the gearbox, or blades/blade mechanism would be welcome!
Regards,
Mark
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Travis Gottschalk" <tgott at hotmail.com>
To: <vwdiesel at vwfans.com>
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2011 3:40 PM
Subject: [Vwdiesel] Windmill


>
>
> 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 a
> nd 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
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