Where should the blades balance?

[john chamorro]

Should they balance side to side on a plane or at any random spot in the rotation?

 

[steve wood]

random,or it's not balanced

 

[john chamorro]

I started out with a top to bottom condition when out of the box. it was pretty obvious what to do. Now it will balance with either leading edge up but side to side not in the random rotation like I figured it should.

 

[John Beardslee]

Hi John,

So if you have it in the balancer and it is hanging side to side then everything below the center line is heavy ie: the leading part of one blade and the trailing part of the other.

John

 

[john chamorro]

That makes sense except it will balance just as flat rotated 180 degrees. Could it be the trailing edge is heavy on both blades?

 

[John Beardslee]

If it is does that is should be able to be dead static with no motion in what ever place you move it to. Try tapping it lightly and have it spin and see where it stops, do this a few times, if it is out of balance it will always stop in nearly the same place. If it is balanced it will stop at many random places.

John

 

[David Murany]

This can be a long process. Make sure that the blades are close to equal size, shape, and length. As stated earlier in this post anything that consistently ends up below center is heavy. Be patient, balancing can take anywhere from 20 minutes to hours depending how many you have done.

 

[John Beardslee]

Hey Dave, back in the day when I was set up and cranking out a lot of props, my bench mark was to do six X460's in and hour all polished and balanced and ready for the girls to bag and ship. It's almost pure torcher for me to do just one prop for my own use now days!!!

John

 

[RobertWurster]

I just got a x 442 mark sholund prop from Robin and it always balences out flat .side to side .is this rong.for a 2 blade ?

 

[John Beardslee]

Hello Robert,

The short answer is that the prop should not rotate when you place it on the balancer, if you spin it lightly it should stop in random places. That said, there are some variables that are really important - you must be using a shaft that fits the prop ie: 1/8", 3/16" or 1/4". NO tapered cones for boat props! If you try to use the aircraft type tapered cones each side of the prop hub would need to be faced square to the bore. On some props the bore size vary in diameter and are really hard to balance if you don't have shafts that are plus sizes (in .0001's) In most cases the shafts on your flex shaft won't fit the prop that snugg and you would change the balance just by tightening the prop nut. Hope this helps.

John

 

[RobertWurster]

Thanx John i have a kintec ballancer.

 

[John Beardslee]

Hi Robert,

I'm not familiar with the kintec balancer, do you have a pic or a place for me to take a look at one?

John