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Blades and Resin
Thursday, 29 October 2009 21:49 Miriam
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I have just been coating a set of blades with resin for the last two days.
I am working on the lovely cedar blades made at the most recent workshop so they are for a 2.4m turbine. Really lovely cedar, laminated lengthways in two pieces and not a single knot to be found. One blade has a little weakness near the tip where it split a little, other that that they are a lovely set of blades.

We are using epoxy resin that has gone off a little so we didn't want to use it for casting however we decided to try it for coating the blade assembly and tail.


When it is mixed it is really gloopy because it has already gone off abit, so you need to work quickly and carefully with it. Yesterday we did one side of everything and because it was quite warm here in the workshop the resin was going off quicker than expected, we just got everything done before it was unworkable.

Despite the resin not being the best it was just fine for the work we were doing and everything was coated very well and set just fine. Unfortunately, because of that rush the blades were a bit messy and required some cleaning today before i could do the other sides.

Big Drops of Resin


I used a combination of tools to clean up the blades - a rasp to flatten the very large drops of resin, being very careful with the rasp not to damage the nice carving that had been done i just took the height off the drops. Then I found that the wee plane, set for fine work, was best at finishing the job, the spokeshave tended to take off the whole drop - sometimes with wood attached so the plane was the tool of choice.

This resin spill-over needed some cleaning up


If you are unsure of which tool to use or how it will react to being used on resin then first test it in an area with lots of room for error - like under the plywood circle or triangle.

Sanding was the last stage of clean-up - yeah - I know - it's not like me to use sandpaper! ;)
Use it sparingly and with a block of wood to avoid taking off more than you should.

The Whale Tail

We finished the blades and the other sides of the circle, triangle piece and tail today. I worked a bit more carefully this time to avoid having to deal with such big drops and spills so tomorrow will tell how much cleaning up there is to do :)

Three Cedar Blades Coated with Resin



Warning: if you are sanding cedar PLEASE use a mask. There is something about cedar dust that is really quite dangerous for the lungs. Shavings are harmless however the dust is bad. We had a carpenter in with us one day who spent a long time recovering from lung damage which he was told was due to working with cedar dust.

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 January 2010 00:35