I love the things you discover when you slowly incorporate the things you already have into a loose design.  This project really began when I was designing the Triaparator for the Steampunk Treehouse.  While designing the blades I imagined it would bee really beautiful to bend the blades upward as they opened and closed.  When I did the first sketch of this concept I drove the motion with the same cam concept I used on the Triaparator.  I quickly realized gears would be better.  Not wanting to go buy gears I began scouting round for things I could find.  Then I ran into Mark Galt (who’s in Applied Kinetic Arts) who hooked me up with some gears that could work.  Once I had the drive mechanism locked in I could really start playing with specific blade concepts.  Below are some new motion studies of some of the ideas I’ve been playing with.  Here they are turning at 1 RPM, however, I really want it to go much slower.

I’m really torn between these two concepts.  Any preferences out there?

Also, please let me know if you are having trouble with the videos not showing video.  I’ve have sporadic glitches and can’t determine on what end there is a problem.

Same concept as above but at a different viewing angle.

Here is the other cool blade design.  This video also shows a bit of the housing I’m imagining.