Prather Pitch Gauges

Today I found two NIB Prather Pitch gauges for sale in a LHS. They are asking $57. Is that a real screw job? Seems pretty costly even for a limited production piece. I mean, how many people want one or even know what it is for?

Where is this LHS?

I think that is about the last price I saw for them. They are not very available. It would be tempting to offer $80 cash and see if they will bite, then sell them on eB*y, or keep one and sell the other. The diameter is limited on these, and somebody was talking about offering a longer one, but who? Steve

The Prather Pitch gauge is worth this price. They go for more on Ebay.
12" diameter props or smaller is what they handle best.
Buy them both.

Terry Prather flew CL combat in the 1960s. Winning the Nats in 1967 with his Winder design. He then wondered away from CL & into Pylon Racing. This was when he came up with or barrowed the Prather Pitch gauge idea for Pylon racing props. It also happens to work well for stunt props.

Props are an important part of the total package for doing well in stunt. A pitch gauge will help.

I think John Kilsdonk was the originator or developer of the pitch gauge. In the early seventies he had an article on how to make one and it looked like a Prather or the Prather looked like it.

I don't remember who had one first, either. Terry was a very good Pylon racer, then he finally gravitated into Boat racing. I had one of Terry's gauges and they worked great. It went to my ex in the settlement (don't ask why - she also got the Van Loo Chipmunk).

If you buy the Classic Stunt CD from Tom Wilk ($10.00 - check the classifieds), he includes the Kilsdonk article. John gives you everything you need to build one yourself.

I live in Aussie and I bought a Prather "look alike" from www.darrolcady.com in the US for US$60 and am most pleased with it.
It is as good as a Prather and they are readily available. A pitch gauge is worth it's weight in gold. (Well worth the money!) Bandolero

Steve,

Maverick/Richard Oliver/RO-Jett Dude has been making noises about a pitch gauge designed and produced with CL Stunt in mind. In other words, will handle the big props now in use. Trying to keep the price under (gag) $100.00. I'm on the list for one; would you be interested in a lease arrangement should it actually show up?

Maybe a time share....

>
>Maverick/Richard Oliver/RO-Jett Dude has been making noises
>about a pitch gauge designed and produced with CL Stunt in
>mind. In other words, will handle the big props now in use.
>Trying to keep the price under (gag) $100.00. I'm on the
>list for one; would you be interested in a lease arrangement
>should it actually show up?
>
>Dan Rutherford

How did you get that answer to post? My tests before and after the time stamp on yours have been bouncing sky-high:

Here is a sorta recreation of what the test message looked like that disappeared:

>I recently picked up a NIB PA .51 complete with pipe and a 3 blade Bolly 12 x
>4.25 prop. Having never owned one of these works-of-art before, I have a few
>questions concerning break-in. Randy is, I believe, at the team trials, so
>I thought I'd ask the experts here.

My regrets, but personally I can offer no specifics on a PA brand. But your edit to your question is the ONLY new activity on SSW since 10:15 PM last night, twelve hours ago. I THINK that some other stuff from the 10 PM to midnight time frame has gone missing. When I first tried answering you, the attempt resulted in a Script Error and the matching error message page. I was able to go back from that to "here", the composition page, and my reply was then intact.

> . . . after looking at the RO-Jett site I noted that the instructions
>for these (those) engines recommend a smaller prop for break-in.
>
My prior response was that all engines with pistons running up and down in cylinders typically respond better to breaking in when given a lighter load, which would amount top a smaller prop with a flatter pitch. I went on to offer an excuse for the fact that I usually do not offer "trivial" responses of that particular sort here at SSW, because I perceive the place as having become far less friendly over the years and so now I prefer not to start another hissy-throwing fit from the now-resident professional competitors, or give that bunch further interest in slandering my branch of CL as has been the case in the past here.

But a second attempt at posting that reply resulted in the reply disappearing somewhere. No error message, but also no new post.The same thing happened to attempt number four, at 3:45 PM, but this time I got the error message that I'd sent an "empty message" (which I had not, but it did get erased and I did have to reload it from storage in NotePad-Plus, a text editor. And there was another difference. SSW's software wants a log-in again. Let's see if it keeps on erasing things?

There'd also been a third attempt, but I didn't save the added stuff, I don't think.

The symptoms keep changing. At 3 PM, there is no error message, and still no update, BUT using the "back" command works normally.

OK, I was wrong -- and here goes test attempt five. Which also failed. After logging in, I got the same "empty message" a second time, reloaded for try six, and it erased that without any error message at all. Number seven or eight was a try at a new thread -- but a script error message is back. Not quite the same error message, however. Now it's complaining about a missing file or some such. And it's now lost my Log-In about three times.

P.S. Weren't there more new threads and/or more replies between 10 PM and midnight? I would swear I saw some threads being updated during that time frame.

.

.
Kiwi

According to Richard the Prather pitch gauge uses a press apply with the pitches marked on it, which are not always put on correctly. The one he is talking about will have the prop pitches engraved directly on the metal of the gauge which one reason for the $100 price tag.