What’s the best way to assemble a five bladed prop to it’s spinner and get the blades consistently aligned? I’m building Hobbycraft’s Sea Fury in 1/48th. Thanks guys.
Best to make an assembly jig, basically a drawing with a center, lines from the center for the long axis of each blade, and an angle block to put under each blade as you glue it to get equal pitch all around.
Make yourself an alignment guide. Draw a circle with the five radiuses (360 divided by five). I suggest you use the leading edge of each blade as your reference point, in lieu of the tips. Just line each up with the line you drew from the center of the circle. Do each blade one at a time…this way it drys before you insert the next, which will help protect it from getting bumped and a blade getting knocked out of alignment.
Thanks guys, what is the standard pitch for aircraft on the ground? And Gerald, I guessing you meant for me to use superglue.
Not necessarily. For tasks like this, liquid poly, applied with a fine brush, works just as well. If you do use superglue, use accelerator to set the blade as soon as you’ve got it where you want it. And so long as it’s not extreme one way or the other, and all blades are the same, pitch angle doesn’t matter that much. It could legitimately be anything from fine to coarse.
Cheers,
Chris.
About 15 degrees at 2/3 of the way out to the tip of the blade will look ok. The tips won’t have much positive pitch.
Gerald, I should have thought to divide a 360degree circle by 5 to get the 72 degree spacing for the blades… I worked in an engineering dept. for several years as a draftsman but that was back in the day of vellum. Thanks again!