BILLY BOY’S WORKSHOP

Taranaki Daily News, 3 May 1930, Page 24 (Supplement)

BILLY BOY’S WORKSHOP

HOW TO MAKE A WINDMILL The making of this small windmill yill provide you with several hours of interesting work, and when it is finished you can watch it spin merrily round with the breeze. - For the arms which carry the sails, take two twelve-inch lengths of halfinch by three-eighths-inch strip-wood, and with a chisel pare away one edge at each end, as at A-A. Th? bottom edge is removed on the left, and the top edge on the right of each arm. At the back of one arm, in the centre, cut a slot half an inch wide by thre-sixteenths of an inch deep. Make a similar slot .in the other arm from the front, as.at B. For the sails, cut out with your fretsaw four pieces of thin wood to the sizes given at C, and round off the corners at the wide ends. Wood taken from a couple of empty cigar boxes would be just the right thickness for the sails, and also for the tail-piece D. Fix each sail to a bevelled part of an arm by three brass screws. Press the arms together at the centre joint and screw them to the end of a cotton reel, which forms the hub E. The hole in the reel is continued through the centre of the arms to take a thick wooden knitting needle, which forms the windmill shaft on which the hub revolves. Cut the baee piece -F out of wood a quarter of an inch thick, and screw on to this, from underneath, two pieces of half-inch wood, two inches wide by one and a half inches high, in the position indicated by the dotted lines. Make a hole through the middle of each, piece of wood to take the shaft, which is held firmly in place by two screws G.G. The wooden head of the needle keeps the arms and hub from slipping ' off the shaft. The tail-rod II is a eeven-inch length

of thrce-eighths-inch strip-wood, cut away for part of its length to take the tail piece D, which is fixed by ‘ three ecrews. The other end bf the - tail rod

is screwed to t-he base F as shown.

To mount your windmill ready for working, made a hole K in the basepiece to take a strong screw, and screw this into the top of a long post' in the garden. Another way is to use a post about twelve inches long, supported by angle-pieces of wood on a base board, which can be screwed to the top of a shed.

To prevent squeaking and to make the windmill run easily, smear a little blacklead paste over the end of the shaft on which the hub revolves.