Attaching spinners to propellers

[svaughn]

Hi,

Has anyone seen a tutorial on attaching the vacuum-formed spinners included in Guillow kits to the props?

I've never been able to do this well. I would love to know if there is a systematic way to do this.

[John G. Jedinak]

All I do is put a little dab of Testors glue for plastic on the inside of the spinner where it meets the prop, then place the spinner on the prop making good contact.....Luck!!!

[svaughn]

Thanks,

That is what I have been doing too. But I never seem to get the spinner centered perfectly on the blade. Also, cutting the spinner so that it fits over the blade is kind of a hit or miss thing with me. I'm just wondering if someone has developed something kind of systematic for cutting and centering the spinner.

On the bigger models, they make backplates for the spinner (the blade goes between the spinner and the backplate). I've never done anything like that, but my models are always tail heavy, so beefing up the prop assembly is probably very affordable weight wise.

[John G. Jedinak]

Are you building for display or to fly???

[John G. Jedinak]

Another brillant idea/tip from Mr. Duckett!!!!!! THANK YOU, David

[svaughn]

John - I always want my planes to fly, but 15 or 20 seconds is all I'm really hoping for. After I fly them, they get retired to hang from the ceiling somewhere. So most of their life is spent hanging around. I guess making the fly lets me accept less that perfect scale and finish, but I want them to look interesting when they are hanging around.

Dave - That sounds like a good idea. I will try it this weekend.


Thanks

[svaughn]

Dave,

I used an emery board to sand down the indentations on the spinner and it worked great:



Obviously not perfect, but much better and quicker than anything I have done in the past.

Thanks

[John G. Jedinak]

Yep...look'in good. You can always count on Mr. Duckett to come up with an excellent solution.

[svaughn]

So the next problem I'm curious about is how to deal with 3 and 4 blade props. To my knowledge the 500 series all come with 2 blade props, but for instance P-40 warhawks and FW-190' usually had 3 bladed props. Some fighters had more. For instance I've seen pictures of a real Spitfire with 5 bladed prop.

I know this begs the question of where to get the 3, 4 and 5 blade props. It turns out making a 4 blade prop isn't that difficult. You can lap-joint a couple of two blade props (id did this for a 900 series Mustang).

But assuming that it is possible to get the blades, any ideas on how set up a spinner for a prop with more that 2 blades?