Building the lift fan

Next is the lift fan. Just like the prop I used pine from Bunnings. On each piece I marked the centre and then marked ½ the width each side of centre. This is the area where ½ the thickness is to be removed so the timber can be overlapped to create a cross. A power saw set to cut at 9.5mm was used to make the cuts. I now glued the timber to make 3 crosses and then laminated all of them together. Once that cured I cleaned the surfaces with a belt sander and then marked the lines, cut, chiselled, sanded and balanced just like I did with the prop the only difference is with the addition of the 2 15 inch disks either side. These were glued and screwed to the prop.

One issue I had is it seemed in certain places that the lamination had not been perfect. As I was using the orbital sander to shape the prop the wood was splitting right at the lamination point. I could open the gap say 0.5mm. I decided to persist and see what the end result looked like and look at its overall strength. I believe that because it is glassed with 3 layers of 6oz cloth also screwed together with the disks and all held together with the mounting hub that the strength is ample. I guess we will find out!