Find out how to make a windmill from a bottle. A windmill made from plastic bottles is a bright and useful decoration

Gardens and vegetable gardens - good help both in terms of food and in terms of rest for the soul. But everything that is grown on personal plots, there are many dangers - beetles, larvae, birds, moles. And if they help fight plant diseases or insect pests chemicals, then it is best to scare away birds and moles from the site, rather than destroy them. A primitive design will help with this - a windmill made from a plastic bottle, made with your own hands from scrap materials.

Waste material goes to work

Many, many different kinds useful crafts can be made from the so-called waste material. Here are some useful things for garden plot and vegetable gardens are also easy to obtain with imagination and skillful hands to, it would seem, unnecessary things. A lot of various options repellers for birds and moles can be seen in various sources, some of them are quite complex, and some are primitive. It’s worth starting to create with the simplest designs. Plastic bottles, scraps polyethylene pipes, broken handle from a house mop, used welding electrode, gift ribbons from already unwrapped gifts, toy bells or cans from drinks - you can put everything into action.

Design Basics

The device for scaring away birds or moles from the site has a completely specific name"windmill" is no coincidence. The main force that makes the structure perform its function is the wind. The wind is blowing - the windmill is working. In order for such a repeller to work, it needs to catch air currents, which means it needs blades. If you set a goal, then make a windmill from plastic bottles You can do it yourself very simply. The most important part - the blades - is cut out of plastic. Moreover, the blades from the bottle will not need to be attached, because they are cut in place and simply bent. The remaining design elements will depend on the purpose of the windmill. Tools you will need for work:

• stationery knife;
• scissors;
• universal glue;
• hard wire;
• beads with a hole for wire;
• self-adhesive film or colored electrical tape.

What are birds afraid of?

Birds provide many benefits by eliminating pests. But when the harvest ripens, they are not averse to eating tasty, sweet fruits, pecking at cherries and spoiling apples, pears and plums. Making a windmill from a plastic bottle with your own hands is quite simple, if you remember that birds are afraid of moving objects. That is why turntables and scarecrows with fluttering sleeves have always helped gardeners and gardeners preserve their harvest.

How to scare away birds

A windmill made from a plastic bottle must be movable to scare away birds. The simplest and a budget option- spinner. It does not require additional costly motors and batteries, because it runs on air movement. But it needs blades to catch the wind. You can make several options for such garden helpers. For example, like this.

Cut an ordinary plastic bottle in the center into four sections that can be bent without separating the parts from the whole.

Then, bending the blades so that they catch the wind, pieces of foil are glued onto them. You can use self-adhesive mirror film. It is also necessary to cut a hole in the bottom that is suitable in diameter. The finished bottle-windmill is put on the remainder plastic pipe or a mop handle. The bottle should rotate freely when the wind blows, but not dangle too much, otherwise rotation will not work. The remainder of the pipe should be long enough for the birds to see the pinwheel.

You can make a windmill from a plastic bottle with your own hands in this version - cut long blades from the base of the bottle, bend them at an angle of 45 0. The turntable diagram is shown below.

Such a windmill is mounted on a rigid base at right angles to the ground. You can secure it in any way - using a nut, if the base is threaded, using a large smooth bead, making a loop on the wire with pliers. There are many options; the master decides which one is more convenient to use. The most important thing is that the turntable rotates freely. Some craftsmen attach several of these devices to one base, decorating them with colored film or painting them acrylic paints. The result is not only functionally useful, but also beautiful thing for a personal plot.

What are moles afraid of?

A windmill made from a plastic bottle to repel moles is a very useful thing, because moles are also pests. They eat earthworms that loosen the soil and spoil the roots and tubers of plants. Sometimes a lot of such underground inhabitants appear on the site. You should get rid of uninvited guests - moles. Moles are practically blind; you can’t scare them with some kind of flicker. But moles have good hearing. It is on this feature that the principle of scaring these animals away from the garden is based. Making a windmill from a plastic bottle with your own hands means saving the harvest, leaving underground inhabitants alive, and not flooding your garden with chemical poison.

How to scare away moles

Moles are afraid of noise, and if you place something on the site that will make noise underground, the moles will leave it, going in search of a quieter habitat. A windmill made from a plastic bottle to repel moles, the diagram of which is proposed below, works just for this outcome. In order for sound to travel well in the ground, it must be amplified using resonance. This can be achieved using a hollow pipe dug into the ground. It will amplify the sound and transmit it across the earth.

The base of the turntable can be taken from the design proposed above - blades are cut out on the body of the bottle, and the windmill itself is placed on a metal base, for example, a used electrode. Sound will be transmitted better through metal than through plastic. Then the electrode, a metal rod, must be placed in the buried pipe so that the sound from the rotation of the windmill is amplified. A do-it-yourself windmill made from a plastic bottle to preserve the harvest is a very simple design.

Pinwheel beauty

Many of those who maintain a garden or vegetable garden try to decorate the area using available materials, the same plastic bottles, for example. What craftsmen can come up with from this waste material. For example, by placing a windmill made of plastic bottles above a flowerbed, you can make it much more interesting. The classic turntable is made of 4 blades according to this scheme.

The blades can be cut out from colorful bottles, then assembled in the center using a bolt and nut or a stapler. Can transparent plastic decorate with self-adhesive film or paint with acrylic. You can make more than 4 blades. In any case, such a classic windmill made from a plastic bottle, made by yourself, will be an interesting addition to the flower garden.

There are absolutely simple designs windmills-suspensions. From a small plastic bottle you can make interesting decoration- cut the bottle lengthwise in the middle into thin, 1 centimeter wide, strips. Then connect the upper and lower parts to form a “flashlight”: press the blades in the middle, folding them in half, but at the edges they should be bent at an angle of 45 0. Make a hole in the cork using a hot nail and insert a looped paper clip into it. You can hang a bell or shiny beads on it. The windmill pendant is ready and can be placed on a tree branch.

It’s not difficult to make a windmill from a plastic bottle with your own hands, but it will provide a lot of benefits and beauty.

This project is a very simple vertical axis wind turbine made from scrap parts. A DIY wind generator is very easy to assemble and requires almost no tools. Drilling a few holes is much easier.

And, most importantly, this way you will give a second life to several empty plastic bottles that are lying around a lot.

Step 1: Basic Idea

From Wikipedia: a fuel-free vertical axis generator is a type of wind turbine with a main rotor drive shaft mounted in a crosswind direction (not necessarily vertical), with the main components mounted at the base of the turbine.

In such a turbine, the blades rotate around a central vertical shaft. The blades are often cup-shaped, with the recesses of the blades being hit by the wind in turn, causing the blades to spin and rotate the central shaft.

In our wind turbine, the blades are made from three empty plastic soda bottles, cut in half and mounted on a cheap plastic tray. The tray is fixed on a long bolt (axis), on which the skateboard bearings are secured with nuts, for easy rotation. The bolt is fixed to the base.

The video shows how our windmill made from plastic bottles works.

The photo shows basic design turbine axis. From right to left (top): plastic gaskets(they were needed because the bolt shaft under the head is smooth, approximately 5 mm without thread). Then a plastic tray (in the photo it was replaced by a piece of wooden plank), fixed with a nut between two middle washers. Below, two bearings are fixed on the outer sides with nuts, another nut separates them, this increases the mounting height and increases stability.

Step 2: Parts Needed

The photo shows all the components of the turbine:

• Plastic tray, diameter 30-35 cm
• 8mm bolt, 125mm long
• 4 8mm nuts (or more if you want to secure them)
• 2 medium washers with 8mm hole
• 2 skateboard bearings with an internal hole of 8 mm (I used bearings with an external diameter of 22 mm and a height of about 7 mm)

Of course, the turbine will need to be mounted on some kind of foundation; then I will show you what kind of foundation I made.

Step 3: Making the Blades

Any three two-liter plastic lemonade bottles will do. Cut them in half as shown in the first picture. I was cutting band saw, it was loud, dirty and, in places, dangerous, but fast. This can be done with scissors, a sharp utility knife or a handsaw.

Bottle caps come in handy to secure bottles to the tray. You need to make holes in them to drain rainwater (second picture).

Step 4: Drill holes in the tray

It is better to take a tray from flexible plastic that will not crack during drilling or bending.

You need to drill three holes equidistant from each other, near the edge of the tray, of such a size that the threads on the neck of the bottle can go through. This means that the holes are located at an angle of 120° relative to each other. The first photo shows measuring 120° angles, the second shows marking the holes with an awl.

The diameter of the holes should be between 26 and 29 mm. Optimal size– 26 mm, but if it’s larger, that’s fine too. I drilled the holes with a 29mm ring bit. The last photo shows the holes being drilled. I used the remaining plastic discs as spacers for the turbine axle.

In the center of the tray you need to make an 8mm hole for the axle (bolt).

Step 5: Assembly

Now we just need to put all the parts together.

First we put a washer and tray on the bolt bottom side to the head (first photo), the tray will be positioned bottom up so that it does not accumulate rainwater. On the other side, we fix the tray with another washer and nut.
Then we put bearings and nuts on the axle, in the same order as in the second photo. The distance between the tray and the bearings depends on the height of the side of the tray. When the turbine rotates, it should not touch the base on which it is installed.

Now we fix the bottles on the tray. They just need to be screwed on, as shown in the third and fourth photos. The open “face” of the bottles should be turned perpendicular to the edge of the tray. all three bottles should be oriented equally relative to the center and edges of the tray (fifth photo). The direction in which the bottles will be turned will determine whether they will spin clockwise or counterclockwise. The turbine in the fifth photo will spin clockwise.

If the holes in the tray are larger than 26mm, you can remove the white retaining ring on the neck and put it back in place, but upside down. The diameter of the base of the ring is wider than the diameter of the top, this will give a tighter fit in the hole.

Step 6: Base

The main part of the turbine is assembled, all that remains is to make a base for its mounting.

The type of base is determined by the location where you want to install the turbine. Maybe you want to mount it on a fence or a pole, or just in an open space.

I decided to install my turbine on a fence support, so I will show you what kind of base you need to make to mount it on this support. You can easily adapt it to suit your needs.

As you can see in the first photo, the T-shaped base is made from 18mm board. The base leg is secured to the support with cable ties pulled through four holes drilled in the board. The bearings on the turbine axis are tightly seated in a 22mm hole drilled in the base crossbar (second photo).

The last photo shows the “clamp” for the bearings. Feather drill I drilled a 22mm hole. I then made a 2mm wide slot from the edge of the crossbar, running exactly through the center of the 22mm hole and extending 80mm into the board. This slot helps you to insert the bearings into the hole without force and then tighten the edges of the hole with a screw, as shown in the last photo, so that the bearings are clamped. A bolt and nut seems like a more secure fastener to me than a screw, and I'll replace it later.

Now the turbine is completely assembled, but I still have an option for improving it, you might be interested.

Step 7: Build Resilience

Although soda bottles themselves are quite resistant to wind pressure, there is one option to increase their resistance. This can be done by securing the centers of the bottoms to a common frame.

I assembled this frame from what I had: a piece of brush handle, a few bamboo skewers and small clamps.

I drilled three 4mm holes in a piece of cutting at equal distances from each other (120° between them), inserted bamboo skewers into them and filled them with glue (second photo). Then I drilled 3mm holes in the bottoms of the bottles for the clamps, and secured the skewers to the bottoms using clamps and glue (photos three and four). Naturally, the bamboo skewers were cut to the required length.

Now wind turbine ready to use! If you want to harness the power of the wind, you can attach the device to the threads on the axle (note: the turbine has only experienced moderate winds so far, and I don't know what gusts it can withstand).

A weather vane is a special device used to measure the strength and direction of the wind. It has long migrated from meteorological laboratories, where more precise electronic instruments appeared, to the roofs of houses, becoming a successful and useful element of decor. Windmills in the shape of exotic animals or birds with moving parts driven by a light breeze look elegant and always attract attention. It is easier to buy complex forged products or order them from an experienced craftsman, and we will tell you how, if available creative approach and a DIY plastic bottle with a propeller.

The weather vane was initially considered a purely meteorological instrument, with the help of which scientists observed the speed and direction of air flows. But people who noticed beneficial features this simple device, began to make them with their own hands from improvised materials and install windmills on the roofs of houses. Over the years, the weather vane has not changed its design, which consists of the following elements:

• Cases. The housing is the part in which the axis of rotation of the windmill is placed. It can be cylindrical or rectangular. For steel models, a piece of pipe is used as a housing into which a bearing is inserted. For homemade windmills, the body is made of a wooden block.
• Cap. The cap is a funnel-shaped or round part that is placed on the axis of rotation to protect the housing from moisture penetration. In addition, it acts as a limiter, fixing the axis of the weather vane at the required height.
• Axis of rotation. This required element the design of the windmill on which the weather vane is placed. It is inserted into the body and rotates the weather vane due to the influence of gusts of wind on the weather vane. You can make an axle with your own hands from metal rods, wire, sticks or even a nail.
• Rose of Wind. This term refers to a device for determining the cardinal directions. It consists of two cross-shaped sticks or sections of pipes, each of which points to a specific direction (north, south, west-east). When the wind sets the weather vane in motion, the arrow points to one of the cardinal directions, which helps determine the direction of the gust.
• Wind vane. A wind vane is a rotating element of a windmill that indicates the direction of the wind. It consists of an arrow and a counterweight and is fixed on the axis of rotation. The weather vane can be made in the form of a simple pointer, an animal, a bird, or an entire plot. It is made of galvanized steel, copper, wood, and the easiest way to make a weather vane with your own hands is from a plastic bottle.

Note! Some models determine not only the direction of the wind, but also the strength of the gusts. For this purpose, the weather vane is equipped with a hanging part on a rope and a special scale. The suspension can be made from a metal plate or wood. This element is fixed to the weather vane. Based on the deviation from the vertical position, the strength of the blowing wind is determined using a scale.

Making from bottles

If you don’t want to spend money on an expensive metal windmill, you can make it yourself from scrap materials, for example, from plastic bottles, which country house a lot accumulates. This activity can be turned into a fun workshop for children or enjoyed creative process on one's own. To make a weather vane in the shape of an airplane with a propeller, you will need 2 large bottles with caps, wooden block, a long nail, wire, cardboard, a marker and a sharp utility knife. The work is performed in the following order:

Important! When making a weather vane, make sure that all materials used are light and moisture-resistant. A heavy windmill will spin poorly in light winds, and a cardboard craft will quickly get wet in the rain. If you want the weather vane to accurately show the direction of the wind, it must be fixed at a height of at least 4-5 meters.

Wind turbine functions

A weather vane is an invariable attribute of seaside towns and villages, where the winds blow constantly, and knowing the direction of air movement is not useless information, but a means of survival. Sailors, fishermen and other people whose lives are closely connected with the sea install windmills to know whether there will be a storm. A correctly made and installed weather vane performs the following functions:

• Helps determine the direction and strength of air currents. This information is useful for going out to the open sea and for performing some agricultural work (sowing, treating with fungicides and other chemicals). Helps keep diaries of nature observations.
• Is bright decorative elements that distinguishes the house from its neighbors. A weather vane complements the architectural image of a home, making it stand out and showcasing individual style homeowner. Models with moving parts depicting plot pictures immediately attract attention, and hand-made windmills from bottles or plywood speak of creativity owner.
• The rotating parts and sound produced by the weather vane scare away birds. Some species of birds are malicious pests that destroy crops of fruits or berries in a matter of hours. Weather vane made from plastic bottles or sheet metal, rotating, scare away uninvited feathered guests with the help of noise and shine.
• A windmill can serve as a sign and symbolize the occupation of the owner of the structure. For example, shoemakers often installed a weather vane in the form of a boot, millers in the form of a windmill, and a hairdresser could make a weather vane in the shape of scissors.

Interesting! In the old days, a weather vane was considered a powerful amulet that protected evil eye, evil spirits. Rotating parts and noise were supposed to confuse and scare away all unfriendly forces from the home. Even if superstitions are alien to you, beautiful weather vane can become a kind of talisman or family sign.

Video instruction

IN summer period almost every day we buy a bottle of water. From such simple waste material you can make great fun for a child or a real one. Wind or plastic bottles are made different ways. It won't take much time, and the child will be really interested in taking part in the process and playing.

Hanging bottle spinners

For work we will need:

• clean two-liter bottle;
• colored electrical tape;
• scissors;
• centimeter;
• stationery knife;
• a ball with a swivel bearing (these are often used for fishing).

Now let's look at the simple step-by-step instructions.

1. Wash the bottle thoroughly beforehand and remove all stickers.
2. Approximately in the middle we cover the workpiece with colored electrical tape. With its help you can hide the remaining glue from the wrapper. The tape should only be applied to the straight part of the bottle.
3. Using a centimeter, mark equal segments and draw vertical lines. The pieces are approximately one and a half centimeters wide.

4. Then, using a stationery knife, we carefully begin to move from top to bottom. Try to make the cuts exactly along the lines, otherwise you will not get the expected result in the end.

5. The distance from the bottom should be at least 2cm.
6. Now we slightly press the workpiece for the pinwheel made from plastic bottles. Gently squeeze the “rays”.
7. Now these “rays” need to be given the correct shape so that the wind can spin the spinner from a plastic bottle. To do this, bend each “ray” at an angle of 45° at the highest point.
8. We do this at the very bottom, but in a different direction.

9. Now all that remains is to decorate our wind spinners made from plastic bottles using pieces of electrical tape.

10. In order to hang the turntable, we make a hole in the lid and insert a mount there. We make a loop from a piece of wire.
11. The spinner is ready!

How to quickly make a pinwheel from a bottle?

More traditional version It's even easier to do it on a screw-shaped mount or stick. For this you will need:

• large transparent bottle;
• marker and stationery knife;
• dye.

Colorful pinwheel made from a plastic bottle

A more complex option involves using several plastic bottles at once. Such mills are often installed on

• garden plots. To work you need to prepare:
• two plastic bottles;
• four caps;
• three large beads;
• pliers, scissors, wire.

Let's consider step by step wizard cool how to make colorful pinwheels from plastic bottles.

1. Cut the bottle in half with a stationery or paint knife.
2. Now we cut the windmill blades with scissors.
3. We bend the blades at an angle of 45° in the middle of the length or at the base.

4. This is what our workpiece looks like at this stage.

5. Gently smooth out the blades.

6. We make holes in the middle of the wings and lid.

Everyone likes the singing of birds, it is interesting to watch the snake in the circus and it is interesting to look at the mole in the picture. It would seem, what do moles, birds and reptiles have in common? First the bad: we don't like them all as uninvited guests. Those who read this do not need to explain why. Now about the good stuff: all these living creatures are afraid of noise!

Here I am: you probably weren’t expecting me?

Let's assume that they won't be able to reach an agreement among themselves and won't all attack at once. However, there are folk remedies, which help to get rid of all the listed pests indiscriminately in the garden.

What to do against uninvited guests?

Of course, progress has worked on this issue and offers a choice of ultrasonic repellers or chemicals. However, it is not a fact that these techniques will work in your case, but “the money was crying.”

Of course, you can record the sound of an eagle, the songs of cats in the spring, and play all this “music” for attackers. This is called a "bioacoustic installation". Note that this method is good to use in nature reserve. In our case, it is completely unknown who will not stand it first: the moles, the neighbors or you.

So it makes sense to try to build a pest repeller for moles, snakes and birds with your own hands from auxiliary materials. If you can’t get rid of uninvited guests, then the money won’t be wasted.

Another "potential criminal"

The simplest skewer - DIY noise maker

The simplest thing is to make a pinwheel that, when rotated by the wind, creates noise. The vibration is transmitted to the ground through the stand and scares away the animals. Birds and reptiles also prefer to stay away from the unknown. It should be taken into account that “motley ribbons” indeed have a “quarrelsome” character and may be offended by an unwelcoming reception. For several days when dealing with snakes, it is better to wear secure shoes and trousers. Here is a master class on making a repeller from plastic bottles:

Another option is to make a rattle to repel pests on summer cottage from a beer can. As follows from the photo, the design is approximately the same.

The jar will emit sounds of a different frequency, which may be useful in conjunction with already made repellers. It is also useful to simply place several beer cans stuck in the ground metal pins. They will add new sounds to the overall “symphony”.

Beer can protects the interests of the garden

We almost forgot about " wind instruments" To control pests on the site, it will be useful to bury several glass bottles. The wind will definitely whistle in their necks, which the pests will definitely hear.

A monument to a good drink and a mole repeller in one bottle

B-52 strategic bomber against moles

It seems to me that anti-mole noisemakers for pest control in a summer cottage do not look very aesthetically pleasing and can be improved. At the same time, you can attract useful joint activities children. Based on this, we put together a three-engine aircraft to repel pests.

B-52 bombs mole positions

To implement the idea, eight plastic bottles were required. The master class on making crafts is as follows:

Bomber - repeller of moles, birds and reptiles can be installed in the garden. We wish you a productive and interesting time. Let this specially selected video help you.

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