Jake2465
Newbie
This fall I plan to get back on my project and I have not begun to build the rotor head yet. The bad news is that it's not built, lol. But the good news is that I have not advanced so far in one direction that the idea of going in another direction is too late.
I really like the Rotorway heads because they look so dang simple to me with a couple of parts on that build that I believe would prove to be a challenge. The first and obvious is that those feathering shaft elastomers would need to either be sourced from Rotorway, which I doubt they would be willing to just fork them over, and the other is the long drilled holes for the feathering shafts to go through the rotor hubs which I believe also need something like a 1.5 or 2-degree angle to provide a pre-cone for the blades.
The need for that pre-cone angle and those elastomers is whats stopping me right now. I have a fancy CNC mill that can certainly help me make some sick parts, but I don't have the headspace to stand a rotor head up on end to shoot angled holes like that. The other big issue is getting a hold of elastomers. Now, assuming that those bearings are nothing more than thin brass and neoprene sheets pressed together to provide enough feathering for, perhaps 20 degrees of movement, then it may be possible for me to make my own. I would need to first fabricate what would basically be a large washer punch contraption to cookie cut sheet after sheet of brass and neoprene.
I would imagine that the generated heat from the neoprene getting worked is basically a function of how many layers the bearing has and how many degrees of movement would be required of the bearing. So, my understanding is that if a bearing has 500 thin sheets of neoprene, then it would get to a certain temperature, and if the sheets are increased to something like 700 or whatever, then the temperature should be less. If the sheets are too few, then it may be possible that the neoprene boils out of the brass and locks up any hope of blade input along with bad vibrations and other stuff that is not so fun.
I don't know what the chance of success would be for making my own bearings like that. I have not found a whole lot of information about it online and I am not convinced that it's simply just slapping a whole lot of brass and neoprene together to make a bearing.
Some time ago I looked into using angular contact bearings for the feathering shafts but with the blades weighing some 30+ lbs apiece, those blades would love to brinell the angular contact bearings to oblivion. I would have to use stacked bearing that is precision ground and matched to each other so the loads are transferred evenly through the races. Because of that, I found it more or less impossible to get a hold of bearings like that. The only product I know of (besides helicopter) that would use those kinds of bearings would be injection molding extruder screws.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what to do here? If I recall, the Rotorway blades when up to operating RPM, something like 500, the forces across the rotor head are something like 15,000 lbs.
I really like the Rotorway heads because they look so dang simple to me with a couple of parts on that build that I believe would prove to be a challenge. The first and obvious is that those feathering shaft elastomers would need to either be sourced from Rotorway, which I doubt they would be willing to just fork them over, and the other is the long drilled holes for the feathering shafts to go through the rotor hubs which I believe also need something like a 1.5 or 2-degree angle to provide a pre-cone for the blades.
The need for that pre-cone angle and those elastomers is whats stopping me right now. I have a fancy CNC mill that can certainly help me make some sick parts, but I don't have the headspace to stand a rotor head up on end to shoot angled holes like that. The other big issue is getting a hold of elastomers. Now, assuming that those bearings are nothing more than thin brass and neoprene sheets pressed together to provide enough feathering for, perhaps 20 degrees of movement, then it may be possible for me to make my own. I would need to first fabricate what would basically be a large washer punch contraption to cookie cut sheet after sheet of brass and neoprene.
I would imagine that the generated heat from the neoprene getting worked is basically a function of how many layers the bearing has and how many degrees of movement would be required of the bearing. So, my understanding is that if a bearing has 500 thin sheets of neoprene, then it would get to a certain temperature, and if the sheets are increased to something like 700 or whatever, then the temperature should be less. If the sheets are too few, then it may be possible that the neoprene boils out of the brass and locks up any hope of blade input along with bad vibrations and other stuff that is not so fun.
I don't know what the chance of success would be for making my own bearings like that. I have not found a whole lot of information about it online and I am not convinced that it's simply just slapping a whole lot of brass and neoprene together to make a bearing.
Some time ago I looked into using angular contact bearings for the feathering shafts but with the blades weighing some 30+ lbs apiece, those blades would love to brinell the angular contact bearings to oblivion. I would have to use stacked bearing that is precision ground and matched to each other so the loads are transferred evenly through the races. Because of that, I found it more or less impossible to get a hold of bearings like that. The only product I know of (besides helicopter) that would use those kinds of bearings would be injection molding extruder screws.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what to do here? If I recall, the Rotorway blades when up to operating RPM, something like 500, the forces across the rotor head are something like 15,000 lbs.
