HarpoMarx Tue Oct 11, 2016 9:30 pm
Yes, I have that PE and I won't be using their blades, as they are also incorrect. The tip of each blade tapers more .. on the whole, they resemble a barracuda tooth, though not as pointed. I ordered a George Sitek 25mm RH screw with a custom hub and I will apply my own pattern to grind and reprofile each blade to get them correct. Then I will sand each blade to nearly a knife edge. I then spin the screw slowly in a drill press and scribe the divide line between the screw and the hub into the brass. Finally, I blacken the screw with gun blue to keep the edges crisp, touching up any areas that don't blacken with paint. I've never seen a submarine with a shiny brass prop ... nor a navy ship either.
If a ship has a newly-ground propeller, there is invariably a series of swirl patterns on the blades where the sand crab took a big handheld rotary brush to them. That is simulated with a thin mechanical pencil eraser chucked in a dremel and applied to the blade in rows ... works pretty well and looks authentic, but I still prefer the darkened screw.
I turned my own brass attack scope to a thinness of a needle. I read somewhere that the scope aperture was the width of a man's thumb ... must be fantastic optics to be able to do that.
I've cut out all the flood ports and now I have to continue the curvature of the pressure hull inward for a small distance to make it look real. I use J B Weld putty for that and a small spatula tool and lots of micro filing. Very tedious work.
Anyway, I'll post some photos as it starts getting into shape. Thanks for all the responses, folks. 73
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