Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

This afternoon I started rounding up the parts for my friend's windmill project. This windmill came from their family farm and was put up by their great grandfather in the mid 1930's. It was installed on another brand of tower, typical of times the original windmill had failed, the grandfather went to town and purchased a new 6-foot Aermotor and stub tower to put on top of the old tower. Sometime in the 1980's during a bad storm the tower legs gave way and the tower fell, the legs had rusted almost completely away. My friend's dad brought it to Phoenix, redid it and we put it up at their house across the street from my place. Now my neighbor's son is having me rebuild it and it will go up at his place in Flagstaff Az. When I cleaned up the dirt, oil & grease I found the name of the hardware store where it was purchased

Very cool Jeff I've seen that on other towers and tailvanes i wonder what kind of paint they used to last that long.

The paint had white lead in it back then, that's why it lasted so long on these old parts and vanes.

Awesome! Pencil writing ( well measurements, etc) above ground level on the legs last almost forever also.

I put together a tower from at least two Aermotor towers. One leg had Egan SD. on it another leg had Hadley Mn on it. They are on the same highway about 30 miles apart. Hwy 34 in the south. I thought the guy said they came out of Ks.

This is over 100yrs old and you still can read it[attachment=0]20220321_094210.jpg[/attachment

Those are very neat rockingJI

We have a Aermotor on one of our farms that was put up in the 20's that you can still read the lumber yards name and town it was sold in on the towers legs. Its on the inside of the legs so its some what protected. It must of been some good paint back then.

I found a pre 1897 Aermotor tower you can still read the name on the leg. Someone said it was the lead in the paint is why the letters stay readable so long.