Shortening a Warp Drive

AirScooter

Scott Waggoner
Joined
Sep 27, 2009
Messages
888
Location
Bear Poplar, NC
Aircraft
Tandem Dominator-Zenith 701
Total Flight Time
8 minutes, 31 seconds
I have heard that you can shorten a warp drive prop. How far can you go with that. Can you shorten a 72" down to 60".
 
I would call warp drive and see if they have any blades that they could trade , I have done that several times.
Norm.
 
you can shorten a warp drive blade. I have a 60 inch I,m going to cut down to 50. You can contact Daryl at warp drive and talk to him. He can give you all the info you need. 641-425-4105
 
There is no problem cutting the prop but you still need to send it back to have the nickel edge replaced.
Norm.
 
no problem, just get a tape out measure. get a hacksaw, then cut, had to do that one time when a rock took 3/4" off 1 blade, very rough flying till I got back to the saw, then screw in some more pitch. :)
 
I would recommend checking the blade weight once they are cut, no more than a few grams difference.
 
warp props

warp props

I decided one time to have a new 3 blade warp tips rounded. I sent the prop back to warp and they did a beautiful job. Makes for a nicer looking prop.
 
There is no problem cutting the prop but you still need to send it back to have the nickel edge replaced.
Norm.

Most of the Warpdrive props not used on amphibs don't have the nickel edge its an option.
 
I had one without nickel on a gyro on skis and in about a month it was trashed so I just have all of mine done with the edge protection , I would have thought rain would hurt them without it too as spray from the floats eats them up even with the nickel , I just takes longer, about 50 hours of float operation and I send it back for nickel replacement .
Norm
 
Joe, I was not aware of that, I assumed that the pod and windshield was for rain protection as if you are flying with an open machine heavy rain hurts.
Norm
 
I got caught in a pretty good rain going to Dad's from Wauchula and I was glad I had the nickle leading edge.
 
This is the response from Warp Drive when they were asked about shortening the prop.


"Yes, the propellers can be cut down in diameter. Everything we build starts at the full 72” diameter and then is cut down to the specified diameter. You would end up cutting 5” off the ends of the blades to change a 70” prop down to a 60”. The main issue is balance. If you have a way that you can set this up to accurately trim 5” from each blade, your balance should stay close. You can use a miter/chop saw with a stop or clamp set at 5” so that you are taking the same amount off the end of each blade. After cutting them, you would simply need to sand the rough edges with a sanding block with 120 grit paper and you are ready to go. No need to seal or repaint the ends after cutting. If we trim the blades down here, we would balance them on our digital scales just like a brand new prop. This would run only about $45.00 plus freight for us to trim and rebalance."
 
That sounds fair enough.
 
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