flex shaft vs solid shaft

[Lorenzo Martinez]

I have two aqua craft boats, revolt and UL-1. Recently the prop flex shaft broke on both boats and I'm ready to buy replacements and was wondering if using a solid (piano wire) shaft would be better solution. Any comments or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Lorenzo

 

[gil sonsino]

What size flexshaft are you using and where were the failures?Remember that with flexshafts is necessary leave a distance between the drivedog and the strut(same as the diam shaft) otherwise you are subject to break them under load..Piano wires produce less drag(friction) that flexshafts so they are a good option if you can use them.Gill

 

[Jim Caldwell]

How many times can you bend a solid wire before it breaks?

 

[ron upton]

as long as the flex and motor are lined up it should be ok for a new flex....

 

[lohring]

Glen Quarles on this forum makes great solid wire drives for his nitro boats. The electric forums should have information on wire drives as well. For just playing around the standard flex shaft is off the shelf, but I built a wire drive for a sport 20 just to see how it works.

Lohring Miller

PS welcome back

 

[lohring]

There's a very old thread here. Unfortunately, the pictures are long gone. You can buy wire drives from Jeff Wohlt.

Lohring Miller

 

[ron upton]

jeff wohlt can make you a nice wire drive he just made me a 1/8th in drive for the executone 10th scale....