RV-12 propeller split at the end leading edge from heat/sun?

[danielabernath]

sensenich propeller
Airplane is only had 50 hours when I bought her from builder; Most recently RV12 has been sitting outside in the hot Florida sun for a year now (waiting for hanger space).
I'm told that Florida is terrible for airplanes outside because of the sun but also because we are only a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico and the salty air.
I am told that this tears apart/deteriorates rubber gaskets in dish washers and such.
I'll supply pictures later as I went to airplane this morning without camera.
My mechanic says maybe can be repair or maker may have to repair. Looks to be a clean separate of the two halfs at the leading edge tip. I can see the dove-tail construction which holds the two pieces together.
(PS, last week A&P man, two of them, did condition report on airplane. They both, as did I, ran our finger tips across leading and trailing edge of both propellers and it was just fine. It only got into the high 80s last week but prop and plane are in the sun)

[Christopher Murphy]

Who made the prop?
Cm

[danielabernath]

sensenich propeller another picture of propeller split. This would be very bad if flying when it did this. (extreme pull to the left)

[rgmwa]

Pretty serious delamination judging by the photo. Have you contacted Sensenich?

[Kyle Boatright]

Originally Posted by rgmwa

Pretty serious delamination judging by the photo. Have you contacted Sensenich?

That's your first step. Regardless of environment, there is a serious flaw in the prop if it delaminated like that.

[danielabernath]

Please note, no damage of any kind to prop face. (I used my thumb to scrape off a yellow bug internals)

Also note that 2 weeks ago, 2 A&P men, and myself, inspected the props for annual condition report and found nothing wrong.

[danielabernath]

Originally Posted by rgmwa

(Sorry about auto focus) Pretty serious delamination judging by the photo. Have you contacted Sensenich?

I saw the flaw (understatement) and it was on a Saturday. i sent them the picture and asked them to correct this serious issue. De-lamination eh? I can see inside of the guts of the prop and it appears that the prop is held together on the leading edge with a modest "dove tail" system. I took my thumb and fingers to test and close it. It takes much pressure to move and I couldn't close the gap all the way. It has warped outward.
This is very troubling as this appeared to just happen spontaneously with only 94.8 hours on the Hobbs and I flew over the Rockies with this. If it happened there, I'd be writing this from some graveyard.

[Steve Melton]

water and humidity have the most effect to reduce the strength of composites. pull test two samples, one dry and the other from a humidity chamber, the dry one will be significantly stronger. water is the enemy of composites.

[Toobuilder]

Is this the leading or trailing edge we're looking at?

No matter, I believe Sensenich will want to see the prop right away. Several years ago I threw 4 inches off the tip of a Hartzell, and they were VERY interested in getting it back to the lab to check it out.

Catastrophic prop failure is a big deal.

[Neal@F14]

That prop blade is toast and I seriously doubt even Sensenich could repair it but they'll definitely want it back to study why it's delaminating like that because these carbon fiber blades are not supposed to do that.