Sharpening, Balancing and Detongue

[Colby]

I'm still a newbie in the RC Boat arena; have had my UL-1 for a month now but haven't had the opportunity to run it .... things still pretty frozen here in Colorado.
I'm looking at ording an extra prop (L38x63) and was wondering which props need sharpening, balancing and detongueing prior to using? Is this an art that most RC-boaters learn or is it better to farm-out? How do you know when your prop needs sharpening, balancing and detongueing? And lastly, I understand what sharpening and balancing is but what is 'detongueing'?
Thanks for the input

[Fluid]

Detongueing is the removal of that part of the blade which first enters the water, it is near the hub. This area on some props has much less pitch than the rest of the blade and while it can help acceleration it will limit top speed if it has low pitch. An example was a club member's T mono which picked up about 4 mph by switching to an "X" prop without the tongue.

Removing the tongue is not essential and is an advanced prop tuning procedure. Sharpening is not too difficult, balancing can be tedious. The most important work is balancing, then sharpening. Detongueing isn't even needed with some props. Search for prop mods, there have been plenty of references to sites with instructions.


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[Diesel6401]

I farm out or buy already sharpend & balanced from here on ose. Only Octura or prather props are available though. For my grim props their is a forum member named egneg that does awesome prop work at a great price.

[wakeboardfusion]

I have done 2 props so far. S/B that is. It just takes some time to do and patience. The second one went a lot faster once i had somewhat of an idea of what to do.

[Colby]

Thanks for the feedback ... so a new grim L38x63 prop should be s & B?

[longballlumber]

Thanks for the feedback ... so a new grim L38x63 prop should be s & B?

Yes, any new props need to be S & B. Lots of good info here...

http://rcboat.com/prop.htm

Later
Mike

[Colby]

Thanks for the feedback and the link. Have you used the 'Prop Duplicator' and if so can I assume it does what it says it does?
Thanks