Balancing propellers

[scottessex]

has anyone ever had thier prop ballanced? Or hecked it to see how close to being balanced it was?

My neighbor says he had his warp drive ballanced on his sub ea-81 powered zenair. He said it made a big difference.

Also I have used one of these active balancers on the old Harley ironhead, and it did get rid of alot of the high frequency vibes, any one ever use one of these on an aircraft?
http://www.balancemasters.com/ultralights.html

[Chuck Roberg]

Tom Milton (gyroplanes) has balanced lots of propellers and rotorblades. He uses a Chadwick ($5,000) balancer. Before anyone says anything I know the "newer" Chadwicks are $7,000 and up. But Tom has a slightly older model.

Advantages of a balanced prop is better performance. It takes power to shake something. With less shake comes less stress on the engine, engine mount, airframe and your body.

Last summer Tom was going to balance my Warp Drive prop. We were in the hangar and ready to go but it started to rain. We tried facing the prop out the hangar door trying to keep dry. But that didn't work. Both of us plus Tom's equipment kept getting wet. So we put it off to another day. That "another day" never came around. With Tom's and my schedule we never hooked up. Hopefully next spring. :rolleyes:

Several guys in the local ultralite club have the Balancemaster prop balancer installed. I have not heard any complaints about them. So I guess they work OK.

I emailed Balancemasters last year. I explained to them the shake problem on our rotorblades and the RPM they turn at. I asked if they thought their product might work on rotorblades. I got back a real short "probably not" for the reply.