Sounds great.......best of luck to you guys.............m.m....and.......Lucy..

How about some pictures and a little more information about the process?
What kind of machining center do you use? What kind of program do you use to design and cut them. Do you start with a casting or a forging?

Roger

Roger,

We start with a casting that is cast from a mold we designed and machined. Billet is very difficult to get and would make the props very expensive. The castings are made to our specs with 100% virgin metal, no remelt like many props, and heat treated to our specs.

As far as the machining center and software we don't want to let that out. We have spent a great deal of money and time to figure out what the best software, machine and tooling works best for this project and would prefer to keep that information confidential. Of the few companies in the world who have been able to make a prop in a CNC and bring it to production we had to figure everything on our own. No one was standing there ready to give us information on what works and what doesn't. We turned many castings into scrap metal figuring out what works.

We had to not only design a prop that worked but tackle the enormous task of making it in a CNC machine.

Matt

Sounds like a real step forward in props and a fair price. Will this CNC process be used in the future on any prop in lieu of hand labbing a prop?

Current cast props can not be CNC machined for many reasons. The biggest is that they are too far out of spec for machining. Another is that diameter varies from one prop to the next and you would be very limited with what you could do to the prop.

With our castings we can change the rake, pitch progression, cup location and amount, tracking, blade area, diameter, thickness, pitch, etc with just some changes in the computer prior to machining. These are options not available with cast props currently on the market.

I do not think all props will be machined in the future, it's just too expensive. But I think almost all high performance props will be in the future. When you can get a prop that is machined for little more than a lab finished cast prop that's a good deal.

Matt

Be sure and let me know when you produce speedmaster props...............m.m....

We are working on that now, we are finalizing the molds and then we will start on those. We expect Speedmaster style props to be available for next season.

Matt

How does your 5 blade compare to the Maximus, when cut to 15 5/8"? Basically what I'm asking is bow/stern lift. Since the rest of the characteristics depend on the hull.

If you want to compare a stock Maximus, which is closer to 15 7/8", to one of our props at 15 1/4" our props would carry the bow in a similar manner. We can make our props in any diameter up to 16", as we increase the diameter it will also increase the sten lift. If you were to compare a Maximus with one of our props of the same diameter the Maximus would probably have a little more bow lift. Since I have seen the Maximus cut in all kinds of different shapes and cup profiles it would be difficult to compare to a modified Maximus.

When manufacturing the prop we can also design the cup to come around the tip if we think it would be necessary, this would help raise the bow.

Matt

Why would a stock Maximus have more bow lift in the same diameter? What’s different about your design?