Day: July 8, 2017

I was confined to the house yesterday afternoon with an electric fan blasting away because of the high temperature. I dropped into Intermarché on my way back from getting my hair cropped off and saw 40 degrees Celsius showing on my car temperature gauge for a short time after it had been parked in the direct sunlight, a temperature which in my current state of health I find totally debilitating.

But it meant that I was able to spend my time profitably assembling the Savannah’s new Ukrainian prop. Kean-eyed readers will note from the pictures that follow that it’s a total knock-off of a Kiev model and even the pitching tool that came with it, which I found to be a doddle to use, is similar, but not identical to, the Kiev version.

First a shot of the assembled prop with its blade covers on.

Now a shot with the blade covers removed.

The blade edges are all protected with stainless steel strips, yet again just like the Kiev. Time will tell how good the quality is but I hope that the strips will remain firmly attached and do the job that they are intended to do.

When the blades were delivered, I found that the quality of the finish was not up to the level that I expected and desired. In particular, where the blade tips had been worked to give a nice sharp edge, the tool had been allowed to penetrate the surface, resulting in a small hole in each tip exposing the construction gap between the front and rear faces of each blade.

This wasn’t difficult to deal with as the following picture shows, because all I did was drop some epoxy resin into the hole in each tip and then apply a dab of white paint to maintain each blade’s appearance. Job done and nice solid blade tips that should last the life of the propeller.

And finally the spinner.

So all in all a nice looking prop that I hope will give the desired level of performance and all for around half the price of a replacement Duc Swirl and spinner. I’ll be happy with that if it meets the performance figures I’ve seen for a similar Kiev 😉