Where have you been? What have you seen?
#1573348
Whilst on yet another of my flying trips around the US, we invited ourselves to the Sensenich wood propeller manufacturing facility in Plant City, Florida.

We were hosted by their President, Don Rowell, who not only collected us in person from Plant City Airport (KPCM), but generously gave several hours of his time for a personal tour (and then drove us back to our aircraft).

The facility was as I expected...wood props being carved, but only about 50 per month for certified GA aircraft use, so there were many surprises in store as to how they kept busy. Please read on.

Wood blanks (a mixture of sometimes Maple and Pine and Mahogany), according to the recipe:



After rough-shaping, the blanks are glued using resourcinol...and I thought I have a lot of G-cramps!



The centre hole and bolt pattern are drilled....



...in a CNC machine



After that, the props go for a rough-cut to very close tolerances in another CNC machine..



and then on to the hand-finishing; the miniscule spoke-shaving that these guys were doing to get the blade sections correct was a delight to see:



These PT22 props were in for re-conditioning from Germany; the blades were good but the integral wood spinners were rotted and needed fixing.



For brass-edged props, the edges are made by hand; screwed and nailed on and then the heads of screws and nails soldered, and then polished flush.









Epoxy-leading edge props were also done slowly and by hand. Cardboard dams hold the wet epoxy mix for 30-40 minutes whilst it cures, then they can turn the prop over for the other leading edge.



But what was of more interest were the composite prop section (for airboats):





and the props made for UAVs (Miltary contracts pay money!)








My very great appreciation to Don for his time in looking after us.

(Sensenich metal props are made in Lancaster PA, and they do indeed make McCauley fixed-pitch metal props there!)
Paul_Sengupta, mick w, Dave W and 5 others liked this
By cockney steve
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1573468
Great stuff, thanks for taking the trouble to make such a well-illustrated and informative post...well, almost a mini- documentary!
I have always been fascinated by "how things are made".....there is a Canadian- Government series of films on that very subject,- absorbing, but all -too- brief. I could happily spend a full day at each featured factory.... Yes, OK, I'm a weirdo! (and I don't care!) :D
Bobcro liked this