A couple of weeks ago we finished building blade A and blade B of prototype prop #2 for the DaSH project.
The blades were finished by covering with two layers of 1.4 oz/yd^2 fiberglass cloth infused with MSG laminating epoxy.
The blades came out quite heavy because of the large size of the chord (the weight was roughly 720 grams per blade, or about 1450 grams for the prop, when we are shooting for something in the 800 to 900 gram range for the entire prop).
We have already designed new props for lower climb power, which has the effect of decreasing the chord size, and will make the maximum chord a bit more than half of the chord of this current design, which should make the foam weight about 1/3 as much as these blades, and the glass and epoxy weight about half as much.
In addition to building the blades, we also lubed the CNC hot wire machine and cut a test piece to make sure it was working properly, before we disassembled it to lengthen the working area. (previously, one of the x-axes got partially stuck).
While we were working, we were visited by a gopher snake:
The blades were finished by covering with two layers of 1.4 oz/yd^2 fiberglass cloth infused with MSG laminating epoxy.
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| One blade glued on spar, the other ready to be glued |
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| Both blades glued, with some test sections with various covering material in front |
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| Sanding the blades before glassing |
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| Finish sanding |
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| Finish sanding |
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| Glassing the blades |
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| The finished blades with partially trimmed trailing edges, drying. |
The blades came out quite heavy because of the large size of the chord (the weight was roughly 720 grams per blade, or about 1450 grams for the prop, when we are shooting for something in the 800 to 900 gram range for the entire prop).
We have already designed new props for lower climb power, which has the effect of decreasing the chord size, and will make the maximum chord a bit more than half of the chord of this current design, which should make the foam weight about 1/3 as much as these blades, and the glass and epoxy weight about half as much.
In addition to building the blades, we also lubed the CNC hot wire machine and cut a test piece to make sure it was working properly, before we disassembled it to lengthen the working area. (previously, one of the x-axes got partially stuck).
While we were working, we were visited by a gopher snake:
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