Process

Requirements and Design
Requirements Step one was to design the propeller stand. This flowed from some basic requirements:

A) The stand needed to be sturdy on carpet. It has to withstand bumps from a robot vacuum cleaner or from my dog wagging his tail.

B) The stand cannot damage the propeller. Surfaces that come into contact with the propeller cannot scratch or abrade the propeller when it is taken off the stand or put back on.

C) The stand must be constructed with the limited tools and space in my apartment.

Materials I had a few ideas in mind for stands and found some inspiration online for stands for other types of propellers – and other objects like guitars. When it came to materials, initially I wanted all metal since that would be the sturdiest (A). Unfortunately metal is stronger than wood so (B) would be an issue and I don’t have equipment to work with any kind of metal, which violated (C). My best chances at satisfying (B) would be to make the stand from wood or plastic, and I ultimately decided to go with wood.

Geometry In terms of geometry, my first iteration was a flat wooden panel with a peg in the middle. This would be so simple – cut the panel to size and screw through it to attach the peg. The concern I had with this was whether it would satisfy (A) and be sturdy on carpet. If the propeller is sitting on a panel, the pressure from its weight is going to be applied pretty close to the center line. Raising it up on a hollow box would mean that pressure is applied on the edge of the box – further away from the center line. This would make the base more stable, in theory, when placed on carpet (an elastic foundation). Another benefit to raising it up was that I could add weight to the inside, if it wasn’t sturdy enough after it was built.

The peg would be a simple dowel rod cut to length. I measured the diameter of the hole and rounded down to the nearest 1/16″. I also measured the depth of the hole to get a sense for how long the peg needed to be. This ended up being unnecessary because I brought the propeller to Home Depot and stuck different dowel rods in it until I found one that worked.

Wood Canvas Base I was walking through a Michael’s craft store when I got the idea to use an all-wood canvas for the base. Initially I thought I’d build the whole base from scratch, but then I saw deep picture frame and thought that was basically the shape I wanted – a box that’s missing one of the sides. It wasn’t long until I found “canvases” that were all wood, rather than linen stretched over a frame. I had a product in my hands, checked Amazon, saw the price difference, and went back home to check all the options on Amazon.

Sizing The size of the base and the name plate were a bit of back and forth. Both came in different sizes, but I didn’t want to pick a combination where the name plate is hanging off the base. Focusing on just half the side length of the base, I knew that needed to be at least the radius of the propeller plus the height of the name plate plus a little bit of buffer. That gave me the smallest possible half-side length, so I rounded up to the closest canvas size. The name plate size I eyeballed based on the size of a business card.

Final Design The final design for the stand was an 8″ square wooden canvas that was 1.5″ deep. The nameplate was a 2″x4″ laser-engraved stainless steel plate. The peg is a 7/8″ diameter dowel rod. The paint used on the stand was Behr Dynasty Nocturne Blue, flat/matte.

Initial Fit
Once I had the design finalized, I ordered the base and name plate from Amazon and headed to Home Depot for the dowel rod and paint. The dowel rod size was chosen by trying several of the dowels and picking the biggest one that still fit in the end of the propeller. The paint color was navy blue. I was going for something that looked like paint on an old fighter plane, but nothing bold or contrasting with the color of the propeller. It’s a stand after all, not a centerpiece.

I also test fit the propeller on top of the base, with the name plate, once the two arrived from Amazon. It was an easy check to do before assembly.

Assembly
Assembling the propeller stand was a matter of fastening the dowel to the base. The dowel I cut to length with my neighbor’s saw. I measured the depth of the hole in the propeller, then took a little extra off for margin of error. Better for it to be too short than too long. I wasn’t totally sure about screwing directly into the end of the dowel rod, but I had extra length and spare wood canvases, so I went for it.

I found the center of the base with a ruler and pencil, then drilled my pilot hole. Same process for the dowel. Because I was nervous about splitting the dowel, I stepped up gradually from the pilot hole to the minor diameter of the screw. I figured if I slowly core out the hole, I’d have less of a chance of splitting the dowel. This worked, but in hindsight I should have used the spare dowel to see whether it was a waste of time.

With my pilot holes drilled, the only real step in assembling the stand was drilling the screw. I could have made the hole in the base wider than the major diameter of the screw, but with the head of the screw that I had, I wouldn’t have had much area left in contact with the base.

Painting
I grabbed two sizes of sponge paint brushes from Home Depot. They were cheap and I wanted one for the larger panel area and one for finer touches. I also grabbed some sandpaper to prep the surfaces for paint. I began working on this project once the average daytime temperature was above the paint’s recommended range. A coat of primer was applied first, then once it was dry to touch I applied the first coat of paint. I repeated the process until the color was even and dark enough.

Some of the newspaper did stick to the bottom of the base once the paint had dried. I sanded the newspaper off and none of it is visible. This does mean the bottom of the stand looks a bit rough, but no one sees it.

Name Plate
The name plate came with an adhesive backing, so the only concern was alignment. I aligned the nameplate with the adhesive covered and used books to define the edges of the plate. I didn’t care as much about the measurement from the edge of the base to the edge of the name plate, but I did care about those two edges being parallel. With my books as a guide, I removed the film from the back of the name plate and placed it on the base. I pressed it firmly to make good contact, then left it alone. I probably would have had better adhesion if I didn’t paint the wood under the name plate, but the bond I got was good enough.