Whirlwind Ground Adjustable Prop and Van's Spinner

[Kevin Taylor]

Does anyone know how to make a foreward bulkhead for the Whirlwind ground adjustable prop to fit the Van's spinner? I contacted the group buy folks and they said the Van's spinner and rear bulkhead will work, but you would be on your own to come up with a foreward bulkhead. It seems to me this would be a critical piece for the spinner to track properly. I don't want to spend the extra money for the spinner they sell with the prop. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[elippse]

Originally Posted by Kevin Taylor

Does anyone know how to make a foreward bulkhead for the Whirlwind ground adjustable prop to fit the Van's spinner? I contacted the group buy folks and they said the Van's spinner and rear bulkhead will work, but you would be on your own to come up with a foreward bulkhead. It seems to me this would be a critical piece for the spinner to track properly. I don't want to spend the extra money for the spinner they sell with the prop. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not at all familiar with the Van's spinner, but I can tell you how we did it on two Lancairs with fixed-pitch props. Those spinners came without a forward bulkhead, and any little bit of unbalance caused it to work the rear bulkhead until it cracked. What we did is took 1/4" foam with one ply of fiberglass on each side, cut it to just fit tightly around the crush plate, then carefully trimmed the outer edge to just fit inside the spinner. We then used flox-epoxy to lock it into place inside the spinner. We also routed the inside where it fit around the crush plate and filled that with flox and let it set up after covering the crush plate with cellophane tape for a release. It is also important to reinforce around the cutouts for the blade as the spinner will bow out around the cutouts due to centrigugal force. "Hope this is applicable!