Homemade Ceiling Fan Blades!

Описание: Last year someone requested me to make a video of an industrial ceiling fan with decorative ceiling fan blades. Thinking it would make an interesting video, I went out & bought a set of used Uchida ‘Arctic’ 52” ceiiling fan blades from a scrapyard. When I finally got around to make the video, I found the industrial ceiling fan motor I’d set aside for the experiment had failed due to some broken spots on the windings. I tried soldering those connections back together but since that motor used aluminium wires for the windings, I got nowhere. As a result of me not wanting to spend money & effort to look for an identical motor to shoot a 5 minute video, the wooden fan blades sat around unused…..until my friend gave me an Uchida ‘Kiev’.

Since one of the blades on that fan is missing, I had to either buy a new set of blades from Maspion, or make blade arms myself. But then I remembered having 5 decorative ceiling fan blades that came from a bigger Uchida. Thinking they must use the same bolt patterns for the motors, I tried screwing one blade arm from the Arctic to the Kiev’s motor, and even though the Arctic’s blade arm is a bit wider, it fits on the motor perfectly. I then took off all the Kiev’s blades, installed 4 of the Arctic’s blade arms, cut up some cardboard in the shape of ceiling fan blades, and screwed them onto the Arctic’s blade arms to see how the new blades would look on the fan & fine tune the shape before I cut any wood.

Since the pretzel shaped Arctic blade arm is wider than the batman logo-ish Kiev blade arm, I had to make the new blades a bit longer to prevent screwing up the motor to blade proportions. The size I ended up with is 44” which isn’t that much bigger than the original 42” size, but if I were to shave 1 inch off of the tip of each blades, the thing would look very awkward, at least to my eyes. Satisfied with how the cardboard concept blades look, I took one off, traced it on a piece of plywood, and cut it up. The new blades bogged down the motor real hard as the plywood I used is a lot heavier than the original MDF//particle board blades. So in order to reduce drag on the blades, I sanded an airfoil shape on the leading & trailing edge of the blades, and that seems to have solved the problem. The other issue I had is balancing. This is my first time balancing a ceiling fan with more than 3 blades and they’re mounted on the bottom side of the motor, obstructed by light sockets. So detaching & installing the blades were an absolute chore, but eventually I got it somewhat balanced by sanding material off of the top side of the blades....which results in another issue which is the non uniform wooshing sound the blades make because 2 of the blades are thinner than the others. That sound can only be heard if you have your ears real close to the blades though, so I’m letting it slide. Another thing thar I don't particularly like about this fan is the low RPM on high speed. I read somewhere that this fan is rated for 55 Watts, but at the moment it only pulls a bit over 30 even though the blades this fan is now driving are much heavier & wider than the original blades. I suspect the capacitor is faulty, as evident by the lack of difference in RPM between low & medium speed. With the airfoil-ish blades, that lack of RPM doesn't really matter as it still moves a satisfactory amount of air for my needs, but I'd still like to have that issue on low & medium speed checked out as a 2 speed ceiling fan with a huge difference in speeds is very much useless for me.

As for the blades that came with this ceiling fan, I had to throw it away because I found termites hanging out in & around those blades, and I don’t fancy them nasty creatures feasting on my wood stock & house. Even if the blades were termite free I would still throw them away as I don’t have any use for them. Anyway, the next step in restoring this fan would be to replace the light kit, and I have set my sights on a light kit to install on this fan. It’s not a light kit meant for ceiling fans, so I have to tweak around with it a bit. I’m also debating whether to repaint the body of the fan in a different colour or just polish it up real good & have the blade arms painted the same color as the body. The blades will be varnished, but I haven’t really decided how light or dark I want them to be. Overall this fan looks very promising, I can see a huge potential in it.

#Uchida #CeilingFan