Up-Cycled Weather Vane: Introduction

Up-Cycled Weather Vane

My name is Joseph Prosnitz and I am undertaking a Weather Vane Build as a Bocca Bearings project

There is a long history of weather vanes as you can read about on wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_vane

*Fun fact they are often called weather cocks because they are in the shape of a rooster on top of churches.*

These wind measuring devices are both ornamental and indicate the general direction of wind. I have always liked that they catch the eye on a windy day. This will be my first build of one. I researched how they are traditionally constructed and discovered they are fairly simple. I decided to reuse a bicycle I had lying in the shop as it had been crashed. The greatest difficulties I foresee are the weight considerations as a vane that is too heavy won’t track the wind at low speeds. I hope to offset this by minimizing rolling resistance. More on this later.

My goals for this project :

1. build a weather vein

2. up-cycle a used bike

3. create a piece of outdoor art

4. experiment with bearings

Primary tools used: 

angle grinder

bench grinder

mig welder (you don’t need a spool gun like the one pictured)

welding table

bench vice

Scissors

Parts: used bicycle wheel

used bicycle fork

bicycle races 

metal tube

Scrap metal

vinyl