Local builders had a chance to share their creations with the public Saturday as part of the Hollandale Harvest Festival.

The Harvest Festival returned for the first time since 2006. Along with events like a mud bog and car football, a tool show and inventors’ display was held at Mr. Machinery Inc.

“There’s a lot of people around who have a great deal of talent and what they really need to do is get together because one person alone doesn’t have the tools or the resources, but if they all group together in a like a club, per se, you can utilize all the resources and actually get something done,” said Baron Ogren.

Ogren displayed a windmill he built at the inventors’ display and tool show at Mr. Machinery.

To make the body of the wind turbine, Ogren used pieces of an old stainless steel milking system he got from a family member. The turbine has a 10-foot diameter, and the blades were built out of PVC pipe.

“It’s a home brew,” Ogren said.

The only thing he used from other plans was a treadmill motor to move the blades, but he said he’s going to look into using other blades.

His first turbine doesn’t produce power because Ogren said he was more interested in testing out the blades to see how they could withstand the weather. The turbine has been on a test stand for two years outdoors with no problems.

Ogren said he and his brother are preparing to build an axial generator to use on a turbine with a 20-foot diameter that will produce power. This turbine could be used for things like charging vehicle batteries.

Ogren works for AT&T in network technical services. Ogren said he gained the skills to make things like a wind turbine through years of hands-on experience.

“It’s a lot of trial and error. I’ve probably broken more things than I fixed,” he said. “You finally get to a point where you start fixing more than you break.”

Ogren also built a 36-foot communication tower that works like a scanner and can pick up the police and weather scanners and aircraft and train communications from the Albert Lea area. He said it’s beneficial to have weather alerts before they reach the Hollandale area, and his children like to listen to the train communications.

Hollandale resident Randy Sylvara also plans to build a wind turbine, but he displayed a static spark generator on Saturday that he’d built from plans he got out of a magazine.

The device has a wooden base and uses inline skate wheels and clothesline reels to turn two plates in opposite directions.

Turning the plates creates an electric charge that travels through copper wiring to jump two copper nodes at the front of the device.

“It just looked like it was something fun to make, so I thought I’d play with it,” Sylvara said.

While it’s a fun device, Sylvara said he’s gotten an electric shock from the device. He said the shock travels up his arm and makes it feel numb for a short time.

Sylvara said he also built other things like a hot rod and a canoe. 

The tool show portion of the event consisted of Mr. Machinery owner Tom Nims displaying some of the tools he sells at Mr. Machinery.

Some of the tools he sells include a miter saw, drill press and belt sander from Ellis Manufacturing Company Inc., and he also sells used machinery like drill presses and different things.

Nims displayed his motorcycle and a trailer he built for it to show what can be done with such tools.

Another example of something that could be built with the tools Nims sells was a dragster built by Howard Schlueter from Madison, Wis. He races the dragster almost every weekend and he said the vehicle can reach speeds of about 160 mph.