I love my Windex. It's my main apparent wind indicator on the top of my mast. It works very well.
Lovely to build your own, quite a design you have there. So for back ground, I used to be a blacksmith and was commissioned several times to build/reproduce wind vanes from bygone years. I have made a number of them.
Given the very small cost of the modern Windex, I would never myself undertake building one as the Windex design is so well achieved. I think the last one I bought (a couple months ago) was about $30.
So first let me explain a bit about why the Windex is so well achieved. The body connecting the vane to the pointer is both very light weight and very low in aerodynamic cross section. The pointer is also very aerodynamic causing very minimal air foil type resistance. The vane has high wind resistance such that the overall pointer part of the vane wants only to face directly into the wind. There are minimal competing forces.
This vane is very well balanced from pointer tip to vane end. It pivots at a point - bearings are not desirable in this application. The point it pivots on is located along the centerline balance point both fore and aft, and the centerline balance point along the vertical axis. So it is balanced in essentially a 360 degree reference plane. Bear in mind, your boat may be healing.... The overall mass of the Windex is very small, minimal mass is desirable.
Another lovely aspect of the Windex is that the underside of the pointing tip, the vane, and the two angle indicators have reflective tape on them. So in the pitch black of the night, you can take a light and aim it at the vane and clearly see what your apparent wind is.
It is truly a remarkably well achieved product for mast top installations on sail boats. I'd suggest you think about all the aspects of what I've explained above and review your design. While unique artistic designs can certainly work - bear in mind, to function, they must approach the design of the Windex - at least for sailboats.
dj
