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Seeking supplier of metric hardware printer friendly version
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Donald
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Posted Sunday, May 31, 2015 @ 03:14 PM  

Hi Fournier folks, I come seeking help.

I am having a new spinner backplate made and I'm basing it's fabrication on the drawing 4-52-03, the backplate for the RF4. The screws that will hold the spinner to the backplate are M5 x 0.8 pitch machine screws, 10mm long. My existing ones, which may not be metric at all, are stainless steel, truss headed, cross drive screws and I'm trying to source new ones. Google fails to turn up any supplier in the UK where I am but does give MrMetric in the States and they have exactly what I want. The only snag is that ordinarily they don't ship beyond the USA although upon asking the tell me that they can. However the quoted cost for a couple of ounces of small screws in a Jiffy bag to cross the pond hikes a few dollars worth of screws to over 135 bucks!

So I'm asking if anyone can suggest a better, more sanely affordable source of such things? I call them truss head but I think mushroom head is an alternative name.

Suggestions? Anyone?

Donald

SteveBeaver
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Posted Sunday, May 31, 2015 @ 04:48 PM    YIM

Donald,

I'll be traveling to Germany on June 13th and would be glad to carry some over for you. You might also try www.mcmaster.com who are my preferred supplier for metric hardware.

These perhaps? http://www.mcmaster.com/mv1433011170//#91290a224/=xfa73l I have an account with the company and get next day shipping because they are quite close to me.

Steve

Donald
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Posted Monday, June 1, 2015 @ 02:35 AM  

Steve,

What a very generous offer. I have seen mention of McMaster but have never had dealings and they do indeed have the items, their stock number 92467A219.
So for the moment I have sent them an enquiry as to what the shipping would cost and I hope to have an answer later today. If their shipping is as exorbitant as MrMetric I will come back to you and see what might be arranged.

For now though, thank you for the pointer and for your offer of help.

Donald

SteveBeaver
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Posted Monday, June 1, 2015 @ 04:06 AM    YIM

Donald,

Those are 4mm. Perhaps 92467A320 ?

Donald
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Posted Monday, June 1, 2015 @ 12:57 PM  

Steve, you're quite correct, 92467A320 it is.

I have had a reply from McMaster and they 'decline to bid', accepting international orders only from established customers. So I would like to discuss your kind offer if it is still open.

On the presumption that it is, the pack of screws identified above is more than sufficient for my needs. I presume you would mail them to me from Germany and it's easy enough to provide my address but how would I pay you for the goods, the shipping and for your trouble? Perhaps you are a trader and can accept VISA. Other more mundane avenues would be via PayPal if you have an account, or I could make a bank transfer. There may be others but I don't know of them.

So over to you, if you don't mind.

Donald

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Posted Monday, June 1, 2015 @ 03:30 PM    YIM

Donald,

It costs so little lets not worry about payment. Buy me a beer next time I'm in the UK.

i'll order those today. They should be at my home tomorrow and I will mail them to you. that way you will have them in about a week. I don't think it costs any more to send them from here than from Germany. Send me an email with your mailing address please.

Donald
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Posted Tuesday, June 2, 2015 @ 01:51 AM  

Steve,

I'm almost embarrassed to accept your offer. I certainly was not expecting such generosity but in the apparent absence of any viable alternative I say, yes please and thank you so much.
Email with my details is on its way.

Donald

Martin Hill
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Posted Tuesday, June 2, 2015 @ 03:16 PM  

Donald

I missed the start of this thread (no pun intended) but a good source of metric hardware is Westfield Fasteners in Aylesbury www.westfieldfasteners.co.uk. They maybe haven't got the truss head type of screw you are looking for but they do have most things. Importantly they are happy to sell you any quantity and you usually get it next day. If you ask they can get other hardware.

I have just taken the spinner and backplate off my RF5. The spinner is broken. Not sure what size the screws are but at a pinch you could have them.

--------------------
RF5 #5107 G-BEVO

Tony
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Posted Tuesday, June 2, 2015 @ 05:33 PM  

Donald

Best place to get Aviation Metric hardware is the UK Diamond Aircraft Agent, the last time I got bolts from them I think minimum order was £10.00 which gave me 5 of the bolts I needed for that particular job. comes with CoCs too as part of their EASA approvals so will keep the BGA happy too.

http://diamondair.co.uk/
01202 570164

They are by far the best way I have found of getting certified metric hardware into the UK.

Tony

Donald
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Posted Wednesday, June 3, 2015 @ 02:04 AM  

Martin, thank you. Westfield Fasteners was one of the dealers Google did give me but they don't appear to have what I want. Mushroom heads yes, but slotted.
Tony, thank you too but Diamond Aircraft's website does not obviously list hardware so I guess you need prior knowledge that they can and will supply such things.

It's astonishing to me that so few options in the UK were returned by Google, and many of them were slanted more towards general construction rather than a more specialised market. That I'm getting these items from the States, not as I understand it a 'metric' country, seems to me a little strange.

Tony
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Posted Wednesday, June 3, 2015 @ 05:17 AM  

Yep, I used to do some part time work at a previous diamond agent when it was on the south coast. If you know the shank and overall length then it's straight forward. I find they're parts department very helpful, if you give them a call they should be able to do something for you. If you send me the sizes, I may well have something in stock. Email tony@thegliderworkshop.co.uk and I'll see if it's something I have.
Bob Grimstead
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Posted Thursday, June 4, 2015 @ 05:16 AM  

Just a quick warning Donald, regarding the fit of your spinner to the new back-plate.

I think I went through three new spinners because of spiral cracking before finding that it is vital for the taper angle on the backplate to match the taper angle on the spinner.

Bobby said the drawings didn't match with the eventual product, although I have no means of checking that bare statement.

None of the new spinners commissioned by Matthew (to the drawings) properly fitted the original backplates. The diameter was perfect, and they seemed to fit, but actually the chamfer on the backplate wasn't quite identical to the spinners' taper.

An almost acceptable result could be obtained by running a bead of black silicone sealant around the outside of the backplate before fitting the spinner, later trimming off the excess after it had hardened, but that's a bit of a bodge.

Just a word of warning to the wise....

Yours, Bob

--------------------
Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV

Donald
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Posted Thursday, June 4, 2015 @ 02:17 PM  

Hi Bob,

Thought you'd catch me out, eh? Measure twice (or more), cut once.

My spinner blank came from Matthew and is, as far as I can tell, in accordance with the drawing. My new backplate is 'based' on drawing 4-52-03 but with some customising. It has no teeth on the back as the RF3 does not have that air-start mechanism and the edge angle I have specified was measured off the new spinner, 10.5° instead of 15.667° (I cannot measure closer than half a degree with any accuracy). So thanks for the warning but I'm ahead on that one, I think. Out of interest I plotted the spinner from the ordinates given and there is at least one point in error which generates a re-entrant in the profile.

My old backplate is too large in diameter so every time it was put on the spinner got strained. I had thought I might get the backplate turned down to size but after years of strain it no longer runs true and reworking was considered impractical, so I bought a slab of acetal copolymer and it's in the machine shop now. Acetal because it machines much better than, say, nylon.

Next trick is to make a decent template for the cutouts for the prop blades. Again the Fournier drawing is not accurate so a lot of paper cutting and fitting going on. An early lesson learned is that the pattern needs to be based on a truncated cone rather than a cylinder to have any chance of coming out good, but what the heck, I'm a draughtsman, I can do conics.

Lastly, thanks to Steve Beaver's kindness I hope to have the M5 screws in the not too distant future. They'll probably arrive before I'm ready for them.

Thank you all.

[Edit by Donald on Thursday, June 4, 2015 @ 02:19 PM]

Bob Grimstead
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Posted Friday, June 5, 2015 @ 11:53 AM  

Well done Donald. As usual you're way ahead of me.
I do wish I'd realised there was such a big difference in the angles before going through three spinners.

I've now sidestepped the whole problem by fitting a Hercules propeller and spinner which, being of smaller diameter, allows more cooling air into the cowlings, just as Eugenio's cowlings have a wider warm air exhaust -- the whole hopefully providing improved airflow and cooling for my 1,776cc engine.

Good luck with your installation.

Yours, Bob

--------------------
Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV

Donald
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Posted Saturday, June 6, 2015 @ 02:06 AM  

Thanks, Bob, we'll see how it goes but I expect it to go slowly. I've got one shot at this.

I don't need extra cooling as mine seems to be just fine in that regard. But then I'm not putting an oversize engine on the firewall and I do live in the north of Scotland where, arguably, the atmosphere has greater capacity for cooling than Western Oz.

I'll post progress, presuming there will be progress.

Donald
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Posted Friday, June 12, 2015 @ 02:02 PM  

Hi folks,

Slow progress in the machine shop, I'm afraid but it's an 'off the books' favour from a colleague so I don't get priority treatment.

On a separate note I received a UPS padded envelope from Steve Beaver today containing the small consignment of stainless steel, M5 truss head machine screws. Perfect! Exactly what I was after.

My thanks to Steve for doing this for me, a kindness I will return if I ever have the opportunity.

Donald

Donald
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Posted Thursday, June 25, 2015 @ 02:16 AM  

Hi folks, a small update.

I had a call from the guy in the machine shop yesterday to say that my backplate is done. It is and he's made a fine job of it but I had taken the spinner along and when we put the two together we found we're not quite there yet. The OD is out just a little, slightly oversize so the backplate does not quite fully insert but at least that can be fixed. Undersize would have been a showstopper. Probably my fault and I'm guessing it results from the spinner wall being slightly thicker than the originals.

So perhaps in a few days I'll be ready for the next stage, transferring the 10 fixing holes to the spinner then the blade cutouts. Not really looking forward to that part. I have my templates ready but there's plenty of opportunity to wreck it still.

Donald

Donald
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Posted Friday, August 26, 2016 @ 04:23 PM  

I’ve been meaning to finish this little project and write it up for some time, but life intervenes. In the meantime, having retired I no longer have access to the machine shop which turned my backplate so when I found I had to fettle the angle of the perimeter a little I had to figure a ‘backyard’ way to do that. It was fairly crude but worked pretty well. An old record turntable provided a spinning platform for keeping an eye on progress here.

Next job was to transfer the screw positions to the spinner blank for drilling. I had had the machinist engine-divide the perimeter and drill and tap the 10 screw holes. Short lengths of M5 studding with one end sharpened to a point were then screwed through from the back side to ‘centre mark’ the inside of the spinner which I could then drill through.

For the propeller blade cutouts I drew CAD paper templates which I cut out and tested against the real thing, refining over several iterations until I got a good fit. Paper templates are, of course, flexible and the fit had to be relaxed in places to allow the spinner, which is inflexible, to be ‘screwed’ on and off over the blades without binding or scoring.

For a durable template to transfer the profile a piece of scrap Plexiglass was rather crudely heat formed on the spinner, locating holes for screws drilled, the paper template glued on the reverse then the profile cut. With that hard template I could accurately scribe the same profile on opposite sides of the spinner located by corresponding sets of screw holes.

Cutting of the spinner was done with a Monodex hand nibbler, a Dremel tool, a couple of files and Scotchbrite pads.

It turned out pretty well, I think, and runs true. The pleasing, practical result is the slight vibration I used to get and which I had long suspected was due to the old spinner running out of true has gone

For some reason Photobucket was being difficult but I've managed to work round the problem and can now post a few pics.

My Sharpie markings for the blade cutouts showing a huge discrepancy between the old spinner cutout and the cutout from on the spinner drawing. The third, blacker line came from my own template.

My crude plexiglass template.

Finished product.

[Edit by Donald on Monday, August 29, 2016 @ 04:05 AM]

Donald
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Posted Monday, September 5, 2016 @ 06:26 AM  

A little video clip of the new spinner...spinning.
https://youtu.be/NyGQV4mXh-o
Roger.Camp
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Posted Monday, September 26, 2016 @ 05:22 AM    YIM

Hi Donald, can you let me know where or rather who the supplier is for the spinner. I need one for my (non Fournier)project.

regards

Roger

--------------------
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Donald
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Posted Monday, September 26, 2016 @ 03:03 PM  

Hi Roger, I'm afraid I don't know.

This thread http://sbeaver.com/cgi-bin/fournier/cutecast.pl?session=bmIuCdyGnUgB4FB9kOx4lxZLkn&forum=22&thread=669 put me on to Matthew Hill, aka Skyhawk 3, who had one remaining from the batch he had had made, but I have no idea who or what business made it. If you want to try contacting Matthew his email is at the very end of that thread, though I have no idea if it's still current.

Bob Grimstead
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Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2016 @ 03:24 AM  

Matthew never replies to e-mails.

Those spinners were made by Artec Engineering of Emsworth, Hants

http://www.artecengineering.co.uk

--------------------
Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV

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Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2016 @ 01:43 PM    YIM

Hi Donald, Hi Bob,

well believe it or not Matthew did reply. hhehe. The deal has been made.

Roger

--------------------
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Donald
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Posted Thursday, September 29, 2016 @ 02:02 AM  

Good for you Roger. If I recall correctly Matthew did say at the time I got mine that he was about to have another batch made. So I presume that although your project is not a Fournier, the Fournier spinner suits you fine.

And Bob, thanks for the info on the manufacturer.

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