How It's Made Wooden Airplane Propellers

[Itsmeeman1]

Anyone else notice the brainwashing? "The Worker."

Trust an American to plant the thought of 'a worker' doing 'the work' rather than just referring to the job that's being done. Don't doubt it, people, it's brainwashing to make you think of people as 'workers' because that's all they want you to be; their workers, their slave workers.

There was absolutely no need to refer to the guy doing the work at all. Was there? NO!

[Ibringthetruth1]

Who uses wood propellers ?

[MrSunrise1961]

@Ibringthetruth1 - Ultralights, powered parachutes, some light aircraft. Wood has a lot of natural damping, so vibration design is much easier. Aluminium has less damping, so it's easy to get destructive resonances in the prop or between the prop and the airframe. For this and other reasons, wood props are much cheaper that aluminium ones - often so much cheaper that the better durability of aluminium is irrelevant.

[yamahonkawazuki]

@MrSunrise1961 as well as wooden props can be repaired if need be. say youre out in the field somewhere and have an incident. i wouldnt recommend this. BUT can be done if need be. ( if it means making it home or camping )

[MrSunrise1961]

@yamahonkawazuki Yup. That gets back to the vibration design thing again - a little too short (not unbalanced, just short) and you can get into airframe-prop resonances - at least that's what our AME told us about the props on our Scout tow planes.

[yamahonkawazuki]

@MrSunrise1961 true. very true. just saying, say you had, idk a piper cub or whatever ( anythign using a wooden prop) and are out, remote camping, and you nick the prop , MAY be able to pull of a field repair and get home. yeah it WILL vibrate like crazy

[GreenAce92]

@MrSunrise1961 what about composite props?

[MrSunrise1961]

@GreenAce92 I don't know that much about composite props. I'm pretty sure the damping is mid-way between aluminium and carbon. Certainly, composites have been used for applications such as helicopter rotors and the rotors on the V-22, and dollars-to-donuts you can find some carbon-fiber props for ultralights, but I'll bet good money that you get a better choice of twist, advance ratio, and solidity with wood, simply because the tooling is so cheap.

[yamahonkawazuki]

@MrSunrise1961 i had composite props on my ultralights. tbh i like wooden ones better. idk it felt better ( and tbh was cheaper too overall )

[bigflytrap]

Why not CNC the whole thing. And who still buys wooden props?

[waswestkan]

This ain't nothing. watch the old the old B&W films of 15' wind tunnel props being made here on you tube

[GrenadeCatcher]

i thought an air screw was a stewardess

[yamahonkawazuki]

@GrenadeCatcher in teh mile high department yes

[TheAntionez]

Did they use the CNC machine on the airfoil side? I wouldn't think they would leave that to guesswork.

[waswestkan]

@TheAntionez Handwork doesn't mean guesswork. U must have missed the gauges they where using as he hand shaped the air foil. Evidently an experienced human can do a better job faster than a CNC mill

[MrXceres]

how can i do a 4 bladed propeller wood without using some of the machines in the video

[behradng]

@MrXceres Carve it out by hand tools spokeshaves and hand planes

[yamahonkawazuki]

@MrXceres you COULD, but id leave it to the experts. it wont be cheap though

[TimAwesomeface]

How its made: How its made videos

[looncraz]

Wow, one of these would look GREAT on my car's antenna!

Well, at least much better than the duck-tape bling that's on there now ;-)

[hateliberals1]

Bring back Brooks........

[johannesgerber]

Like the handy work, scrap the cnc

[airr916]

if they gonna use computer to craft the whole thing, why dont they just skip the 2nd step where the dude to cut the wood part...

[gmodesike]

@airr916 it would require a great deal more machining..the cnc is taking away such small amounts at a time....hence..

[Serostern]

@gmodesike Simple to change the bit.

[gmodesike]

@Serostern that's beside the point