“I thought you and your wooden blade fans would be interested in this . We’re currently building a short run of 16m blades in wood epoxy in the now disused Vestas workshops in Southampton. We’ve taken an old design which was last built about 10 years ago and redesigned for birch veneer. The blades are for 400Kw Turbowind machines and weigh approx 1 tonne each. The birch veneer is like plywood but with the all grain running in the same direction. It is a fantastically strong material. Each veneer is approx 4mm thick and made up of 3 plys. Its vacuumed into female moulds along with glass and foam sandwich for the trailing edge panel.
I think we are the only big blade builders in the UK now! Crazy!”
Nick Barlow
Designcraft Ltd
This is very impressive. I am also interested in the process of making these and knowing whether they can be made on a smaller scale. I guess it is a little like making plywood except that they are profiled and not flat.
Any ideas where I can read up a bit more on this?
I don't think that any of my drawknives would be up to that job!
They are pretty impressive blades!
Would love to know more about the process of making them.