…is Steve!
Just kidding. Steve’s actually one of my best friends. We met about four weeks into me adopting golf as a hobby, and we’ve been golfing together for over ten years now. He’s taught me most of what I know about the game.*
Steve also happens to own Byam Propeller Service, a business his dad started back when Steve and I were…considerably younger. Steve and his team take care of propeller maintenance and repair for all sorts of aircraft, which means I get to hear a lot of interesting trivia about planes and the air industry when we’re golfing.
Some time ago we were chewing up a course in Marble Falls and talking about the most common requests for propeller modifications.** Steve mentioned that they can frequently change the angle of the propeller blades. It’s a pretty impressive operation, considering that it involves bending a three foot length of steel by small enough increments to measure with a micrometer.***
I made a comment to the effect of, “You must have some fancy, really expensive, single-function machine that performs that operation, huh?” I was slightly correct. They do indeed have a machine for bending props. And is fancy, in that sometime, years ago, Steve’s dad revolutionized it by adding the extension lever you’ll see in the video. Check out the clip and see how this work is performed.
That’s right. The propeller blade is bent by amounts too small for the eye to make out by a guy wrenching at it with a big ole vise, a long lever, and a lot of elbow grease. Keep in mind that Byam Propeller’s safety record and customer satisfaction are impeccable — there’s no corner cutting or questionable practices here. People’s lives literally depend on the quality of the work, and it just so happens that the right tool for this work is a vice, a lever, and the right knowledge. There’s probably a good lesson in there.****
* This probably explains why my average game has improved by nearly two strokes in the past decade.
** Ask any golfer, this topic comes up all the time during a round.
*** I started using a digital micrometer for designing stuff on my 3D printer. Nothing makes a liberal arts measure feel all scientific like having a valid use for a micrometer, trust me. Measure one thing to a fraction of a millimeter and suddenly we’re Stephen Hawking, Macgyver, and Dr. Who, all rolled into one.
**** And it’s probably better than any lesson you’ll get from me or Steve on the golf course.