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Making Laminated Propellor Blades from Paper


mhaselden

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This was posted on Hyperscale but thought I'd share it here.  Never tried the technique but the results achieved in the photos are pretty impressive.  I imagine the technique would also scale quite nicely for those who work in the braille scale by simply reducing the number of sheets in each layer.

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/848474938507986/permalink/1530849163603890/

 

Hope some find this interesting.


Cheers,
Mark

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Hmmm interesting I wonder if there is some form of resin that you could soak the paper in rather than using CA. I recall recently idly watching one of those 'How it's made' programs on telly and they were making laminate covering for worktops and such by a process of soaking big rolls of printed craft paper in some form of resin.

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Sorry, but I think wood will look better. At least with that kind of thin paper, because there are too much structure within one layer.

 

A example, how wood can look:

It is one for my Pfalz D.IIIa in 1/48, made from pear and boxwood. Note the shape of the plastic airscrew is wrong, since mine is using a "AXIAL".

RuGyB-INmf62HlxIl5645UW8siczDrguFP9QCEDi

 

Front side after basic shaping:

nzepWvG_9QmpgUT40LsgTwTLPiF_od1ZNXswp1ek

 

Back side:

8PFEpG9CMpTt9nPbsMefnZ8AYddw4uLQZqT2F314

 

Make it stronger with primer and color:

QYEFOrxSBSw89HT91-dcNOEP4fnihPN4Znzt9fW5

 

The size matches now:

XSq-vnFOdm_fPG-IwF2Ie3WM9ddjStCXJHrXc8My

 

Compared to the original one, front ...

7T-n64TLrKiukordj4cNHKHoBjBQIaRU8Gxd3ZIy

 

... and back:

YNtwa3nge_V1fdvA_XwaO6k-HAQgx62YRZ4Ebu1k

 

The final view:

0RRkMwYUB3yTRnaSsWrH9SpwSSEpC4-M78Sl2xzM

 

For more pictures see here: Pfalz D.IIIa

 

Also 4-blades are psossible, here on for my D.H.2 Stripdown

z7_qZxIg6qg1okyykc50RdQPeg1yDUY7QSI1le8A

 

PHSLKyvM5-eRHp_ppCCl7buvsdncQWzP3BS-k2M-

 

YGSuHkzxHhcErGWnpHWMt7PtkT1Ex53kbzhDGot9

 

nV0I7dVieRay9Lr9gMlc6UQWEcUXbvjmMCGpnYB1

 

The sentence with the "skill" seems to be right:coolio:

qaTseRA3HumbJxHWWxlpj2GyPpJrTBFcUkbK6hcg

 

gZ9G96Ua5G4q52zN3vZHKcIAhEZLJMQvXH9Hq6Do

 

tF90-NIlHxhYPIe_SjtJ_AD4zR6NII5GFsgWplLe

 

GbJzCCJc93o7kaE9OG_fkL-eyXCjQ4awByPbYT1L

 

f5F0Ccu_G1j5BdbtBs7p_6mnX6ooRySHqvfsvrfH

 

GHBmXtAoGcuwxGPrTf_Rb-QFcLE1Oj4fIexofkFG

 

More pictures of that biplane can be found here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235020509-airco-dh2-stripdown/

 

My other biplanes shown here in the forum use often wooden air screws too.

 

Happy sanding!

Frank

 

 

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On ‎5‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 8:49 AM, Bughunter said:

A example, how wood can look:

It is one for my Pfalz D.IIIa in 1/48, made from pear and boxwood.

 

These look fantastic Frank.

Can I ask, what thickness are the wood strips you're using and what tools do you use to shape the laminated blank?

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Of course :coolio:

The thickness depends from the original airscrew. I check the size usually on the drawings, e.g. in a Windsock Datafile, for the overall thickness and then count or guess the layers from pictures. A division tells you the needed layer thickness, typically around 0,4...0,6 mm.

For some kind of woods you can find veneer in the internet. This the most problematic task, because you need only a small amount and not a huge number of square meters, and on the other hand only some kind of wood are usable, e.g. the thread starter has used linden tree which I think is to structured as many kind of woods. Mahagony for example has to many water channels for that small scale.

So if i have veneer, then I sanding down a stripe to the needed thickness. If I have a small block, like my boxwood in the picture above, it have to be sawed to veneer before. For this task I use the small circular saw Proxxon KS230. The shaping is mostly done with careful sanding. For the rough shaping a micromot hand mill or even a very special tool, which I own: a "violin making plane" (a bit hard to translate for me):

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CxKZw12PFxk4WM3hubw9508OwDT0_IuhCEUSehjs

 

But most of the work to carefully sand it with fine sanding paper.

 

Have fun working with wood,

Frank

 

Edited by Bughunter
fix typo
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