Prop ?

[mulligan]

With all the prop talk going on it has me thinking. What is the difference between a labbed and blueprint prop?

I have always thought that a blueprinted prop was balanced and all the blades made uniform with maybe some tweaking here and there. While a labbed prop was taking a blueprinted prop to the extreme by thinning and sharpening the blades ect. I have heard both terms used interchanged.

Any prop gurus want to shed some light?

[dabear]

When most hi performance prop shops blue print a prop they try and find out what performance gains you are looking for .They try and fine tune your prop to get you the performance you are looking for than a blue printed prop should be fine tuned to get all the blades as close to the exact same pitch and cup as posible. As far as I know Merc racing was the first to use the term lab treated props. When you send your prop to a hi performance prop to be lab treated the usually modify the prop the same as above but also thin the blades the lab treated thinner blades usually get you 150 - 200 more RPM because of the lighter thinner blades, good performance gains but not as strong.

[mulligan]

Thanks Joe. Just the kind of answer I was looking for. I feel better I was not far off the mark.