A stormy night

peterpavuk said:
Not too much of a damage - but my windmill ruined. nothing impossible to fix - but irritating.
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Ouch. Repeated experience shows the roof of my signal cabin takes off between 45 and 50mph, so I know fairly accurately how blowy it was yesterday. :wasntme:
 
I've always fixed my buildings down, in various ways - I don't have many, but nothing's blown away yet ................... :emo:
 
Hello Peter,
I hope you can repair the windmill!
May i give you an advice to counteract the forces af a storm?
Use a spring to secure the roof instead of glue it directly to the building.
Construct a sturdy truss at the center of the roof , to which a vertical spring can be attached.See figure.
Add a hook at the base allowing the other end of the spring to be hooked.
This setup enables the roof (wind mill vanes) to flex slightly during strong winds and then return to its original position once the windpressure subsides.
My friend Rainer did this with his Pola windmill and it stood over a decade in his garden without suffering any storm damage.
A 1.2 mm stainless steel spring has kept the upper structure stable all these years.
The blades spin at frightening speeds from time to time - yet remarkedly, they've always remained intact.
That is, untill a football came along!
It is all explained, including how to make the spring, in chapter 6.1 of our book "Our Model Garden Railway" at Amazon.

I hope this will help you.
 

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Gerard said:
Hello Peter,
I hope you can repair the windmill!
May i give you an advice to counteract the forces af a storm?
Use a spring to secure the roof instead of glue it directly to the building.
Construct a sturdy truss at the center of the roof , to which a vertical spring can be attached.See figure.
Add a hook at the base allowing the other end of the spring to be hooked.
This setup enables the roof (wind mill vanes) to flex slightly during strong winds and then return to its original position once the windpressure subsides.
My friend Rainer did this with his Pola windmill and it stood over a decade in his garden without suffering any storm damage.
A 1.2 mm stainless steel spring has kept the upper structure stable all these years.
The blades spin at frightening speeds from time to time - yet remarkedly, they've always remained intact.
That is, untill a football came along!
It is all explained, including how to make the spring, in chapter 6.1 of our book "Our Model Garden Railway" at Amazon.

I hope this will help you.
Click to expand...
Thanks for input, i certainly will think in that direction going forward.

for now I have just temporarily attached it to base for now with some 3d printed brackets, screws and garden wire. I plan to move house in few years so don't want to be too invested in this layout - many things are done cheaply and with low effort as i know i will dismantle it all soon.
 
Gerard said:
Hello Peter,
I hope you can repair the windmill!
May i give you an advice to counteract the forces af a storm?
Use a spring to secure the roof instead of glue it directly to the building.
Construct a sturdy truss at the center of the roof , to which a vertical spring can be attached.See figure.
Add a hook at the base allowing the other end of the spring to be hooked.
This setup enables the roof (wind mill vanes) to flex slightly during strong winds and then return to its original position once the windpressure subsides.
My friend Rainer did this with his Pola windmill and it stood over a decade in his garden without suffering any storm damage.
A 1.2 mm stainless steel spring has kept the upper structure stable all these years.
The blades spin at frightening speeds from time to time - yet remarkedly, they've always remained intact.
That is, untill a football came along!
It is all explained, including how to make the spring, in chapter 6.1 of our book "Our Model Garden Railway" at Amazon.

I hope this will help you.
Click to expand...
and yeah - i have repaired it in no time - actually all damage apart of one broken wing was on glue lines. Wing I managed to fix too - i used pipe weld - it glues this type of plastic like it neber been broken
 
Pipe Weld a really great glue, supplied generally to stick plastic drain pipes and gutters with down pipes. Sadly it tends these days to come in a jar with a silly big brush like @peterpavuk ‘s illustration. Many moons ago I managed to get a tube at Gibbs & Dandy which was much better for our purposes, sadly not available these days.
 
dunnyrail said:
Pipe Weld a really great glue, supplied generally to stick plastic drain pipes and gutters with down pipes. Sadly it tends these days to come in a jar with a silly big brush like @peterpavuk ‘s illustration. Many moons ago I managed to get a tube at Gibbs & Dandy which was much better for our purposes, sadly not available these days.
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Yeah the brush is awful, but one can get a set of disposable brushes for a quid or two of amazon.
 
peterpavuk said:
and yeah - i have repaired it in no time - actually all damage apart of one broken wing was on glue lines. Wing I managed to fix too - i used pipe weld - it glues this type of plastic like it neber been broken
Click to expand...
If by "wing" you mean one of the "sails" (I'm such a pedant) word of acdvise. If the the break is across its main spar, at any point, then "drill & pin" before glueing together. If you already haven't done so. I have a large resin made windmill, built fom a kit based on the one at Princes Risborough, it has had it's sails brokem due to storm force wind damage. I thought I'd rely on CA glue (that is ideal with resin) as there was a reasonbly sized bonding surface......nope. All 4 sail spars have now been drillled and pinned and with an added brass plate screwed into the back....and CA. P.S. Did you notice a spike in your windmill's power generation in the gale force winds ? :) Max.
 
maxi-model said:
If by "wing" you mean one of the "sails" (I'm such a pedant) word of acdvise. If the the break is across its main spar, at any point, then "drill & pin" before glueing together. If you already haven't done so. I have a large resin made windmill, built fom a kit based on the one at Princes Risborough, it has had it's sails brokem due to storm force wind damage. I thought I'd rely on CA glue (that is ideal with resin) as there was a reasonbly sized bonding surface......nope. All 4 sail spars have now been drillled and pinned and with an added brass plate screwed into the back....and CA. P.S. Did you notice a spike in your windmill's power generation in the gale force winds ? :) Max.
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Yeah, call it sail. The main structural part there is a 1x1x20cm solid abs beam, it broke - but I've just glued it together with pipe weld. It creates a seam as strong as plastic itself. Had it been different material - I'd definitely would reinforce - but abs can be chemically welded.
 
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