Category: Workshops

We just finished a wind turbine building workshop near the village of Gimonde in the district of Braganca North Eastern Portugal.

Here is the crew in front of the 2.4m turbine

We built a 2.4m 12v turbine for the workshop organisers CoraNE

Making the coil winder

We worked in the veranda of the function room at an agri-tourism location, a working farm – Quinta das Covas, with holiday apartments, restaurant, bar, pool and a flock of sheepWinding the coilsAlthough this is Portugal the temperatures were about 2degrees and very chilly in the shade so we often carried the workbenches out into the sunshine to work. We used local pine wood for the blades, some knots however pretty good wood for carving.Rotor timeSoldering the coilsGetting the moulds readyCutting out the islandsAction stations!Placing the coils in the mould, some resin is already in the mouldPouring the resinThe blades are getting nicely carved downThe paparazzi have found us again – RTP, one of Portugal’s four tv stations came to have a chat with the workshop participantsYou can see the flock of sheep grazing in the background, ironically near the garden bar-b-que. The sheep are accompanied by a shepherd all day as they wander around the groundsDrilling the four holes for the hub in the blade assemblyNice tail, it’s an oak leaf, the emblem for CoraNE, the organisation who put the workshop together