Propeller Hub Decor

This may not appear to be a woodworking project at first glance except for the base. However the project required a number of woodworking techniques and procedure.

I was asked to create this as a door prise at a golf tournament. I was provided a scrap (unarworthy) propeller hub and three flight instruments, and challenged to mount the instrumentsin the hub.

The first problem was that the depth of the instruments if I tried to mount with simple mounting plates to the faces of the hub, there was not enough space inside. I therefore needed to create more space.

I did this by making a wooden cylindrical collar (see the black rings) for each of the three openings to space out the instruments. It was necessary to carefully cut out the openings for the instruments and still leave enough for attachment. I cut the cylinders with a band saw from 5/4 that I salvaged from an old piano. Final smoothing was done on a stationary belt sander.

The top piece with the decal is made from lexan. The worst part of making the lexan part was match drilling holes to those in the hub. I think It took me three sets of scrap before I got one right.

There is a lasy susan bearing between the wood base and the hub to allow free rotation.

-- Jerry, Wichita KS