SS prop dings?

So I nicked up the tips of my Stainles Steel Prop today in some gravel! Can a guy just take a file to clean it up or do I need to take it into a prop shop?

Is it still balanced? Do you feel any vibration or loss of hole shot/rpm? If not lightly filing not an issue if just little nicks. Bigger horsepower outboard, bigger issue.

File it smooth and forget about it.
If it was necessary to have your prop rebalanced after every little nick & ding, we wouldn’t have enough prop shops to repair all the damage.

If its just dings, you can clean it up with a file no problem.

-J.

Cleaning it up with a file is not as easy as with aluminum. Perhaps an angle grinder or a Dremel. I would try that then take the boat out on flat water and run at full throttle. If the rpms, mph and vibration are the same as before then I’d leave it go. If not I would package it up and have Spee-Dee delivery take it to Soderbloom’s prop repair in Cromwell.

“So I nicked up the tips of my Stainles Steel Prop”

The tip of the prop does about 90% of the work. The cupping at the very end of the blade is what throws the water Vs. cutting. If the cupping is dinged, it should be fixed.

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File it smooth and forget about it.
If it was necessary to have your prop rebalanced after every little nick & ding, we wouldn’t have enough prop shops to repair all the damage.

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x2. You would be suprised what a prop can take and still not affect performance. Congrats on getting that first nick out of the way!

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Cleaning it up with a file is not as easy as with aluminum. Perhaps an angle grinder or a Dremel. I would try that then take the boat out on flat water and run at full throttle. If the rpms, mph and vibration are the same as before then I’d leave it go. If not I would package it up and have Spee-Dee delivery take it to Soderbloom’s prop repair in Cromwell.

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I’ve filed mine, welded it, refiled it and rebalanced it.

A good, regular file is all it ever took to do that reshaping.

But if your really concerned about the file being able to cut stainless or clogging the file with chips, they do actually make files specifically for stainless steel.

Stainless Steel Files

I might add that as a walleye fisherman, I’m not nearly as concerned with how fast my boat goes as bass guys are. The only time your going to see me going wide open across the lake is if I see lightning or other extreme weather heading my way. Most of the time, 3500rpm (27-30mph) is fast enough for me. For the price of gas these days, I can afford to wait an extra minute to get to the spot we’ll be fishing.

Joel, I share your opinion about high speed boat travel, I am comfortable at 30 mph. When I bought my used boat the prop on the 140 hp Suzuki looked as new. It reved up to the specified 6000 rpm on the boat’s tach and went 40 mph on flat water based on the GPS unit. I hit some rocks and dinged the prop. I filed and pounded it back into shape. I thought all was well until I noticed I had lost about 400 rpm from top end and it would not go as fast. I had the prop repaired and it went right back to 6000 rpm and 40 mph. Shortly after my brother in law had the same experience. In his case we both agreed the dings did not look too bad. But he lost rpms and top speed. After repair they were restored. From this I base my opinion that rpm and top speed compared to a baseline are good indicators of the props condition.

I can’t argue that.

So far I haven’t noticed anything different on my boat. I’m no expert on restoring badly damaged props. If my prop damage was anything serious, I’d do the same thing everyone else does. Which is to send it to the professionals and let them do it.

My primary prop I run is an engineered prop with specific cupping modified for the weight/size…for my rig. The first thing I notice when I get minor dings in the cupping is the increase in fuel consumption. I mostly run about 3/4 throttle where I get the best fuel economy.Speed and RPMs will change slightly, but I can definitely tell the difference when I fill the tank. When you frequent the same spots and do nearly the same runs, you see a consistency in how many gallons you burn. Hard to really put an exact figure like 10 or 15% increase of fuel economy with modified prop. But when you see 30 gallon days drop to 25 or 24 with same amount of running or more, paying for the extra work on a prop begins to pay back. Though if I fished areas prone to dings where I couldn’t get 10 tanks out of a prop, it most likely wouldn’t pay then.