Subject: Metal prop building
From: ACRE
Date: 10/21/2003, 10:41 AM

"Robinson, Chad" wrote:

Paul, when you mentioned carbon fiber, were you talking about carbon fiber 
over foam the way a composite airframe is built, carbon fiber over wood 
to add strength to the wood, or just pure, naked, carbon fiber, maybe laid up in a mold?

Regards,
Chad

I think the best way is to use thick carbon fiber skins laid up in female
molds  and bond them together at leading and trailing edges. Clamp them back 
in the mold and inject them under pressure with syntactic foam. Syntactic foam 
is a fancy word for a micro balloon epoxy mixture. Syntactic foam can be
made in a variety of densities depending on the ratio of micro balloons
to epoxy. This is the way power fin ultra light prop blades are made.
for a fixed pitch prop some sort of hub should be made so the pitch can
be ground adjustable. Similar to the way Warp drive props are made.

BTW the shank diameter on Warp drive blades seems to be too small
as people have had trouble with them. The basic idea is sound however.

Paul Lamar
 
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