a_ pop_bottle_whirligig

This page is a good example of how some people (like me) never grow up. Some stuff looks neat, and I just have to try it, juvenile, or not. This is such a page. There isn't any practical use for this project, but I like it, so I'm adding it here.

I did some exploring, looking for info on whirligigs, and found out that there isn't a whole lot of info out there. There is a lot on it actually, but it's mostly published in book form. I'm going to add some here, soon. I will see if I can come up with a few different styles that move and turn. But for now, here's what I found:

If you are looking to make a wooden type, there are instructions on making a roadrunner style whirligig here:
http://www.binkyswoodworking.com/RoadRunnerWhirlyGig.html
It has counter rotating legs that spin in the wind, which are pretty cool.

And, here's a different style, " A Spiral Wooden Wind Thingy ". Its a pretty neat looking wooden one that hangs and spins vertically and uses a bunch of smaller wood pieces in its construction. I haven't seen or made one of these, so I'm not 100% sure how well it works, (or if at all). From the looks of the pic, I would say it works really well.

In my travels I did find some stuff on making a whirligig from a pop bottle, which was pretty interesting. There are a few sites with info on this topic. The page that was most together was this one:
http://www.mothergoose.com/Whirligig/bigWhirl/bgwhirl.htm

Their page shows how to build a whirligig out of Soda bottles. They have called their whirligig "El Supremo". It is easy to make and very forgiving even if you don't get all of it exactly right. I have based my page on their basic idea, and have added a few twists of my own. The chrome colored one below was made as per their info -

Being the child that I am, I had to make one of these when I came across the "El Supremo" page. I thought it would look neat, so I covered it with a layer of foil. It works well. This was my first attempt.

I made a few more, trying to refine the process a little bit, and came up with these two:

This is my favorite. It starts turning in hardly any wind. It reminds me of a prop from a Russian sub, or the first compressor stage in a turbine engine, or maybe some kind of Stealth equipment.

As per the El Supremo instructions, I cut the bottom off of a 2 L bottle, at a mold line that ran around the lower area of the bottle, at about 2" from the end. Then I printed 2 sheets of the pattern as shown here. It takes 8 vanes of this pattern to go around a 2 L pop bottle, so it was necessary to tape 2 sheets of the pattern together.

I will attempt to save a number of patterns here, in some as yet unknown file type, so that they can be opened (and then printed full size onto a 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper). If all goes well, I will add a table with full size printable files for every bottle size I can find. This may take a little while, so you may want to check to see what I have from time to time. Please note that the single pattern that I have included will not print out full size. This means it can't be used to tape onto a bottle, because it will leave a space between the 8th and the 1st vanes. However, I will be adding templates that you can enlarge to a full and actual size in the very near future.

After you print the pattern for the vanes, tape it onto the bottle, and cut the vanes to the pattern, using a set of scissors, or some of the high tech shears now on the market. Be really careful cutting this plastic. It can be started with a knife, but I would recommend using scissors to finish the job because a knife is just too unsafe when doing one of these. I find that you can do a much more precise job with scissors, also.

Cut right down to the line shown as " B " (this shown on the pattern). At the base of each vane, fold the vane across one of the angled lines. You will notice that there are two sets of angled lines there. Pick whichever one gives you the curve that you want for the vanes. Folding the vane on a diagonal line gives the vane a bit of twist so that the wind will want to turn the rotor. After you have folded these, preen each vane so that it is perpendicular to the outer surface of the bottle. Slide the bottom or top piece of the bottle (which has already been cut off) into the piece that has the vanes attached, and glue it up with contact cement. The basic construction has already been covered on the "El Supremo" page, but I will show it here, also.

After the glue has dried, and the body is together, find a coat hanger, cut the hook off of it, and the section that is twisted around the hook. Straighten the remaining hanger out, then bend it like so for the central axle:

Tape the joint together with a small piece of duct tape, or scotch tape. Give it several winds of tape. If you have some 3/32" dia. weld rod, you can use it instead of a coat hanger. It is the perfect size, if you are fresh out of coat hangers.

Take the rotating body of the unit (the two pieces that you have glued together) and drill or melt a hole through the center of the bottle cap, and through the center of the bottom section of the bottle, so the coat hanger can pass through.

It works best if you can get these holes right in the center of either the cap or the bottle bottom. If you drill these, the drill has a tendency to wander off from the center where you want the holes to be. Here's what I use to locate the holes in the ends. It works really well and gets the hole right in the center. It is a wood burning tool with a pointed tip. After you use this, you will still need to clean up your holes with a 1/8" drill. Melting it through first just ensures that your hole will be located where you want it.

The tool I use to put the holes in the center of the cap and in the bottom of the plastic bottle.

After all this is done, put a couple of winds of duct tape at the rear of where the body will go. Cut the duct tape to maybe 1/2" wide, so that you use a narrow strip of tape, only.

Your whirligig will work best if you can use a nylon washer where the body turns against the rear stop (the winds of duct tape). If you check your plumbing stuff, you might have a nylon washer there, or you can get really small ones at Home Depot for a few cents each. These are perfect for this.

Slide the rotating body onto the end of the coat hanger, and add another small roll of duct tape at the forward end of the hanger. This will hold the rotating body in place, and should be added in such a way that it allows the rotor to spin freely. If you prefer, you can use a really small nylon tie wrap on the end of the shaft to hold the rotating body on. These work really well, also. When the tie wrap end is clipped, you can hardly tell that its there. I am using one of these on the white 7 vane, 1 liter bottle type, shown in the picture above.

If you have a plastic pie plate hanging around, or a plastic top from a margarine container (or even a paper plate), cut the flat part in the center out of it. I prefer to use plastic here (such as the lid from an ice cream container), because plastic has less tendency to warp or twist up, like a paper plate eventually will. If you want, you can cut it into some other shape (such as the tail/vertical stabilizer shape from a WWI Spad, a Fokker Triplane, or your favorite airplane). Duct tape this new tail piece onto the end of the hanger.

You are almost ready to try it out. Find a short piece of plastic tube (maybe 5"- 6" long), and tape it to the end of a broom stick. For the tube, you want to use something with a small diameter. I found that a short piece of plastic water supply tube (for a basin or toilet supply) worked really well here. A tube barrel from an old pen, or a plastic straw might even do the job, if it is sturdy enough.

Drop the vertical part of the coat hanger into the tube, and its ready for a test run. All you have to do now is push the broom stick in the ground somewhere in your yard, and wait for a gust of wind.

If you are happy with how it works, lift it out of the tube that it sits in, and give it a quick coat of paint in whatever color you have that suits the look of your creation, and now you are done. Now you can slip it back in, and watch it spin in the next gust.

Warning - these are very addictive. If you make one and it works really well, it is hard to stop there. I'm constantly trying to make something that goes faster and looks neater than the last one.

If you don't have a printer available, you can still cut the vanes by hand. If you are planning to cut by hand, I would suggest one of these two methods for this:

1) From the "El Supremo" website: Cut off either the top or the bottom of the bottle. On the remaining piece, find the parting lines that were left on the bottle during the molding process. These will run the length of the bottle and will be 180 degrees opposed (one on each side of the bottle). Cut down these lines. Approximately centered on the parts that are left, cut again and repeat this process until there are 8 equally sized vanes. Fold the vanes back so they are approximately at 90 degrees to the bottle. At the base of each vane, fold the vanes so that they are at a slight angle. This gives the vanes a little bit of twist, so that the rotor will want to turn in the wind.

Push the section that was cut off earlier into the section that contains the vanes, and glue them together. The rest is shown here.

2) Using a measuring tape, measure the distance around the bottle, and write down your result. Divide this circumference measurement by the number of vanes that you want, which will give you the width per vane. Measure out your vanes using the calculations you have just made, and mark them on the bottle with a permanent marker. Cut along your marks, and you can make one with any number of vanes, without using a pattern.