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My VERY tatty, wooden 'Merlin' prop blade……Any ideas? poor pics, me, not camera.

Hi, purchased this many years ago, (probably when I had more money than sense!) from small Antique Shoppe in Braintree, Essex, was told it came from Hurricane that came down in someone’s garden…such an odd story, is it possibly true?, why say Hurricane when you could have said Spitfire?
As you can see, it isn’t in the best of health, lost a section of metal leading edge, someone has applied blue paint, which I attempted to remove with stripper, but it took the prop finish with it, so I gave up. I did manage to remove WHITE paint from a tip very carefully, revealing the remains of original yellow.
Someone, NOT ME, has had a go at sanding the other side at some point.
The only other markings are a reddish circle at the ‘metal’ end, there is nothing ‘underneath’ except rotten wood!
It seems fatter overall than a lot I have seen, there are no sharp edges to the angle at the hub end.
I guess it is just a generic? possibly ww11? blade and cannot be attributed to any one type? Aneorac about?[ATTACH=CONFIG]230844[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]230846[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]230847[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]230848[/ATTACH]

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By: Arabella-Cox - 8th August 2014 at 13:12

– or full of water!

Anon.

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By: Scramble Bill - 8th August 2014 at 12:57

The overall length is 63 inches?, as far as looking underneath, FORGET IT!, all rotten unfortunately, poss been standing a long time in soil?, although I would have expected more, ‘rot’ to wood overall?…… oh yes it weighs a ‘TON’….I have to be very careful shifting it, as I have a bad back! it must be substantially solid inside still.

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By: Arabella-Cox - 8th August 2014 at 08:34

It’s not an Anson blade, the direction of rotation is wrong.

It certainly looks like a Merlin blade, akin to the profile used on Mk.9 Spit. However, the elusive numbers will hopefully help clear that one up.

Anon.

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By: Derbyhaven - 8th August 2014 at 08:29

If it’s not too rusty the hub end of the prop will have part numbers stamped on it. They are on the flat bottom face.

What’s the overall length?

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By: Bruce - 8th August 2014 at 08:24

It looks like a Spitfire blade, and with Braintree being pretty close to the original home of Historic Flying, it may be a blade from one of the gate guards that were moved to the area.

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By: JollyGreenSlugg - 8th August 2014 at 01:49

I had a late-model Anson blade a few years ago, looked pretty similar, from memory.

Mind you, that was 20 year ago, so my memory may be up the creek!

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