My first instructable, here we go! I always wanted to have a old wooden airplane propellor just for show. It's something every guy needs in his mancave. To bad the real thing is pretty costly so why not make my own? I got plans from a site (witch is in fact a walkthrough on making a propellor) and I went to work.

Note that I made my prop with 2 types of cheap pine wood. Making it out of oak or maple was to expansive. We got pines enough in Holland so I went with that.

Little disclaimer: This propellor is ment to be a decorative showpiece. Not a real propellor to use on a plane or something!

Step 1: Printing the Plans and Drawing Them on Wood

First I printed the different layers on normal A4 paper. I changed the measurements in Photoshop to get a ruff 1,5 meter long propellor. This was all done without a ruler a tapemeasure. I kinda eyeballed it. Then I traced them over on the wood. I used 2 different kinds of pine so it would look nice.

Propeller Plans.pdf
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Step 2: Sawing and Gluing

Then I just sawed all the 8 pieces out with a jigsaw. Gluing them together was a pain but I managed by gluing them in sections. Note that you need to glue them in a spiral.

Step 3: Sanding, Sanding and a Litle Bit of Sanding...

Ok this is by far the longest part of the build. Right of the bad I noticed that with normal sanding this would take eons. So I tried 'sanding' with a anglegrinder. This worked pretty nice! When the rough shape was done I took a palmsander with grid 40, 80, 120, 180 and 220 to finish it off.

Step 4: Staining

The last step was staining. I just took a dark color i had lying arround and slapt it on. You could use polyurethane aswell. Since this project took long enough I didn't bother. Done!

Step 5: Update

Update! Its been a year but I just had some free time to update the prop. The dark staining didn't sit well with me. The woodgrain is hardly showing and overall it was to dark in my opinion. I sanded the whole piece done with 220 grid and gave it 3 layers of PU clearcoat. Now the 2 different types of wood realy show! Then I added some red spraypaint to the tips of the prop. Lastly I threaded 6 M10 'acorn' or 'cap' bolts in the base to give it that finished look. Done!