A Paper Plate and Pop Bottle Savonius Wind Turbine

Step 2 Cut out the Fan blades

In this case we're going to use a 5 blade design because that's the most convenient. You'll notice that the bottom of the soda bottle is conveniently divided in 5 parts. In the case of my bottle these were about 1" wide at the top ( see picture ).

Carefully peel the label off of the bottle. Don't worry about the glue, its tedious and I haven't found a good way to remove it...yet.

Using a Sharpie mark the midpoint in each node ( see picture ). We will use this to cut out our fan blades.

After all the sections have been marked off use the Sharpie and a ruler to mark a straight line down the flat portion of the bottle. This will be our cutting guide.

Cut off the top and bottom of the bottle. Be careful, I used a hobby razor knife but scissors will do nicely. A word of advice, cut and then trim. Do not attempt a fine cut on the first pass. Cut off the top and bottom well above and below the center then trim off excess.

Okay now cut down the lines we drew earlier. This will create 5 even blades. Trim and square off the ends of the blades to a common length. I arbitrarily chose 4 inches although I probably had close to another 1/2 inch available. More if I had cut carefully...

Okay our blades are ready, now lets cut out the wheels.....