Friend of mine told me he knows someone who got a prop from gator tail that had a bead welded all the way around it. said it was designed to make it stronger and perform better in sand. He also said it worked well. Anyone have any info on this?

nope haven't heard of that but have considered trying something like it. if you were to weld a bead on the leading edges of the prop with some hard faced welding wire it would take a lot more sand to wear it away but i would think it might make it more brittle and prone to cracking

i was wondering what that weld would do to deep overall performance. it seems that a weld wouldnt allow the prop slice through water and/or mud as efficiently.

if you were to weld a hard bead around it and grind it down so it was smooth with the rest of the prop it shouldn't reduce or help performance but it will take longer to wear away so it will last longer when running through sand

The best thing to do with it if you were trying to make it last longer you could braze tungston on the trailing edge. that would probably be much stronger that a wire weld!

If you know what youre doing it can be done. Only problem would be balancing the prop. you cant just weld on it and expect to have the exact same amount of weld on both blades. A prop shop could do it. Thats how they rework an old prop. Build it up, grind it back to shape, repitch/recup, balance. But no, you dont just leave a bead of weld on the prop.