Actually just cleaned up the design to look pretty.
these /'strong magnets were removed from old PC hard drives. They kindof look like Disk brake pads.
I pry'd the "pad" off of the mount. The magnets are brittle. you can see I shattered the magnet on the left. the right one has already been removed in one piece.
I recessed and epoxied the magnets into the side supports.
I epoxied one vertical side support in place and put one screw up through the 1/4" base.
To get the proper spacing for the 2nd support I placed the prop balancer in position between the supports with a 1/8" bulsa sheet between one end of the spacer and the magnet and glued and screwed the 2nd support into position.
this spacing allows one end of the balancer to touch a magnet while the other end is NOT touching anything. Cant get much less friction than this. It spins for a long time....
Note that the prop is off center toward the side that is actually touching the magnet. This would help if the magnets were weaker. These magnets will support the prop even if the prop is on the far side of the support.
On the green balancer with the sloping sides I managed to cut a magnet in half with 1 half on each side. they are not as strong this way but still work.

Thats enough playing around with these balancers. Back to work on completing my Tiger 60....


Steve

Cool Beans Popriv looks workmanlike and will serve well.

I read the original thread and started tearing into an old hard drive. Now I have to make it look even better.

Great work.

Hmmmm The store-bought balancers have tapered prop holders. That feature allows you to properly balance props of varying hole thicknesses. You just slide the tapered holders towards one another.

I couldn't tell if your invention ( pretty neat! ) had tapered holders. If not, it would easy enough to drill a hole in the center of a dowel; slide a bolt and nut into the hole; and chuck it into a drill or a drill press. Then, one could sand/file/cut a taper onto two of them. regards, Rich

The prop holder in the picture is meant to be held between your thumbs. The blue nuts have a tapered side that centers into the prop hole. (same as you discribe)
I had bought this for a few bucks but didnt like the way it works when you hold it between your thumbs..

we have a prop swap at our next club meeting so I'll bring these and give them a workout.


steve

Can you buy these magnets, I don't have a spare hard drive laying around.

A quick search of magnets turned up many sites, " http://www.unitednuclear.com/magnets.htm " and they dont look to expensive...

I bought some small "button" magnets at radio shack to hold down the canopy on my foam easy glider. I was going to use a screw on one side and a magnet on the other. The magnes were so weak I ended up epoxying a magnet into the fuse and another into the canopy so it was magnet to magnet. This worked well for this use but they wouldnt be strong enough for the prop balancer..

Steve