My buddy at Autozone jb welded some tire weights on my lawnmower blade. It's smooth!

Well hello sunshine.

Hopkins doesn't cast his own props. He buys them from a guy in Houma and then bores, cuts the keyway, and may put some cup on them and pitches them. He buys stainless props and heats them red hot to bend them. If he quenches the prop after heating, the prop becomes harder, but more brittle. It may last longer in sand, but hit a stump and you'll sling a balde. Sand is gonna eat up any prop, stainless or not, heat treated or not. Hopkins told me that they've tried to use harder stainless, like a 8000 series or something(mercury uses this metal on race engine props) and the prop blades wont flex at all, they just break.

Hopkins is a good prop guy and knows what he's talking about, but I also think that he is not as great as he thinks he is. His props are good, but I don't think that anyone has solved the sand problem. New Iberia prop also has stainless MM props. They are good also. Maybe a thick teflon coating, or powder coat over the prop. Something that is harder than sand is what you'll need. There are lots of cool coating products are out there that may help in the sand.

There has to be something better out there. The road milling machine I ran, had carbide bits on the drum. It would mill at a rate of around 8 ft per min for 1-2 miles before we would have to stop and change out a couple dozen bits depending on the condition of the road. The drum was powered by a 12cyl Cat engine and spun right around 1200rpm. Normally we were removing 4-6 inches of material per pass. I've also seen bucket teeth scraping off shale last 2-3 days for 12 hrs a day. I'll admit they don't spin at 2600 rpm, but the pressure applied during the stroke has got to be more than what a MM exerts.


On the same thought tho, expendables are needed to keep the flow of money going to the manufactures.

u know, even dimond drillbits on a rig need to be changed out frequently.


i think sum of u obama supporters on here ought to call him once he's through appointing crooks and bankrupting the country with his pork-laden stimulus bill, maybe he can lay hands on sum props and 'change' them into a sand eating mofo.

I tried a Loctite coating that is used on impellors at wastewater treatment facilities. The sludge is abrasive and wears on internal workings and also elbows of high flow pipes.
I got a can and coated a prop. Let it dry and gave it another coating. Moco looked high tech as shit. I took it out to a well known sandbar and switched props on my rig. 5 minutes of sand hogging and the prop was as shiney as it was a week before.
I found another coating that has a coarser texture and also a metal primer that should help the metal bond to the ceramic. I'll give it a go in the Spring and let you know.
I've bought three PD props and a Hopkins. So far the Hopkins seems to be lasting OK, but does not have the top end speed of the tulips i've had before.