Mark Watson's 3 D printed turbine blades

[vermonter_railfan]

Found this zombie thread and given that Mark Watson has not been on The Railwire since July 14, 2021 and cannot be reached through e-mail, was wondering if anyone can explain how pivoting Mark's long wind turbine blades around curved trackage was accomplished.

Did Mark incorporate a sling for the blade ends and/or use a turntable under the hub attachment ends?

Ill send a text and see if I can get an answer from him for ya!

@samusi01 also has his version of the blades now too

[vermonter_railfan]

Found this zombie thread and given that Mark Watson has not been on The Railwire since July 14, 2021 and cannot be reached through e-mail, was wondering if anyone can explain how pivoting Mark's long wind turbine blades around curved trackage was accomplished.

Did Mark incorporate a sling for the blade ends and/or use a turntable under the hub attachment ends?

Also for what its worth, I also have a few clips of @Mark W windmill train while he was running it at the 2025 Altoona N Scale weekend in my video from that event.

[pmpexpress]

Ill send a text and see if I can get an answer from him for ya!

@samusi01 also has his version of the blades now too

Greatly appreciated.

Should you get a response from Mark, tell him that I am still interested in acquiring some of his assembled Micro-Trains BNSF Fuselage train car sets.

Where can samusi01's turbine blades be seen online?

[Chris333]

What happened to Mark?

[pmpexpress]

Also for what its worth, I also have a few clips of @Mark W windmill train while he was running it at the 2025 Altoona N Scale weekend in my video from that event.

Having provided a wealth of modeling ideas, thanks for sharing the link for your Free-moN N Scale Layout at the 2025 Altoona N Scale Weekend video.

[pmpexpress]

What happened to Mark?

The only information that I could locate online indicated that around May 11, 2022, Mark had officially decided to resign from his seat on the Free-moN Steering Committee.

[Chris333]

Oh I meant here on the Railwire. Always liked his posts and 3D projects.

[vermonter_railfan]

Oh I meant here on the Railwire. Always liked his posts and 3D projects.

I think life just caught up with him and some of the backlash of the Free-moN steering community issues. But regardless hes still involved with Free-moN and I actually talk to him on a early daily basis about various projects. He hasnt been doing much with the 3d side of things but thankfully @samusi01 has filled the void with some stuff like Windmill, M1A2 detail kits and even some Boeing stuff.

Mark is hosting be at the upcoming Deshler/Spring Creek Model Trains Free-moN weekend in April, most of us east coast Free-moN misfits are planning to attended.

[pmpexpress]

@samusi01 also has his version of the blades now too

Located the @samusi01 print files for his splendidly crafted blades and hubs on Cults3D and Thingiverse.

[samusi01]

Tried to respond earlier but down in the islands and the phone had a disagreement with the local cell provider.

I don’t recall how Mark’s blades handled curves, but the prototypes typically handle in a couple of ways: blade root will be on a turntable and the tip will either be suspended in a sling or on another turntable. The longer blades (say in excess of 50m) tend to do the latter.

Sam

[pmpexpress]

Tried to respond earlier but down in the islands and the phone had a disagreement with the local cell provider.

I don’t recall how Mark’s blades handled curves, but the prototypes typically handle in a couple of ways: blade root will be on a turntable and the tip will either be suspended in a sling or on another turntable. The longer blades (say in excess of 50m) tend to do the latter.

Sam

Sam,

Thanks for chiming in.

While I have located plenty of usable photographs of the prototype sling arrangements, had no such luck with the turntables.

Any idea where I could find some close up shots and/or engineering plans for the turntables?

[samusi01]

Engineering drawings - sorry, no. You might try poking around the US Patent Office but I've found those are ideas and may diverge wildly from actual prototypes.

Images/videos (useful at high res, and with obsessive use of the pause button):

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=47370798%40N03&view_all=1&text=blade

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=8788895%40N05&view_all=1&text=blade

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtlwestrailfan/albums/72157694001661464/

Sam

[pmpexpress]

Engineering drawings - sorry, no. You might try poking around the US Patent Office but I've found those are ideas and may diverge wildly from actual prototypes.

Images/videos (useful at high res, and with obsessive use of the pause button):

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=47370798%40N03&view_all=1&text=blade

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=8788895%40N05&view_all=1&text=blade

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtlwestrailfan/albums/72157694001661464/

Sam

Sam,

Thanks again.

Had not seen any of the photos and videos that you have referenced before.

Capturing stills from videos has proven to be very useful when photos cannot be located.