Hi, my friend and i have contributed blood sweat and countless hours on building an entirely scratchbuilt boat. we used a craftsman 32cc motor and its around 5.5 feet long. we have it fully operational (we had problems with dry fuel line and a dirty carb). everything including servos rudder, motor and paint are on the boat. the thing we need is a prop. we used the original cable from the weedeater. the weedeater is a "convertible" which means the cable we used is half the length of the pole so the boat is mid engined for balance. i assumed i could drill a hole in a computer fan blade and get at least a few runs out of it, but i failed to realize the physics of this and when i ran it, the fan just bubbled the water and it went nowhere. i thought of carving one but i would never be able to balance it. im really unsure of how to measure the shaft, but on the prop end it has a metal peice thats about double the diameter of the shaft which allows it to connect to the second half of the weedeater pole.

sorry this is so long, but weve been going it alone on all of our "garage engineering" and we're totally stumped on the prop. thanks for any and all comments in advance!
-SZ

You say the motor is midmounted for balance? Picking the boat up... should balance around 25-27% from the stern. This might allow your short cable to work...

my mistake, its not quite in the middle its slightly towards the back. about a foot or two. the short cable works lengthwise right now, but im not sure about the prop because theres really nothing to attach it to. can i cut the cable and swage it (mispelling?) with one of those metal rings? again, total amateur at this whole thing.

No problem dude.... We all start somewhere.. Yes cut it with hacksaw, grinder, whatever.. and get a brass ferrule (1/4" X 1/4") to solder it to. The ferrule has grub screws on the other end to attach to the prop shaft. Hope this helps!! Good luck and don't get dissappointed... You've got this far!!!!

Thanks man i appreciate it. ill try that out.

If you need any pics... they are all over this website and others...

any specific solder i should use? would u recommend a gun or iron?

Here is a good picture I got off the Warehouse Hobbies website...it is pretty much self explanatory, but if you have questions feel free to ask...that's what this forum is for. BTW WHH should pretty much have everything you might need to finish your project and Tony is a real nice guy to talk with. FYI.

*** this picture shows a THREADED prop shaft, but you can use a standard unthreaded shaft if you buy the ferule with setcrews.

thanks marc! very helpful. ill check out warehouse hobbies.

Sounds like the transom end of your boat isn't really complete...I would have to see pictures, but you need a drive or a strut on the transom, to run the flex cable to and hold the propshaft. I would recommend looking into a drive system from WHH. Here's a link to some on their site.

www.whhonline.com/Drives_s/8.htm

A call to Tony explaining to him what you have would most likely be best in my opinion. You'll be surprised at how helpful he is.