Today, while trailering the boat, I ground the aluminum prop. Not a lot of damage, but I want to correct it. Can I just smooth and balance it, and be okay, or are more "heroic measures" required?
It only takes a small amount of material to be missing from one blade to throw the prop out of balance. If material is missing, smoothing it will make it look better, but it will still be out of balance.
How do you propose to balance it? It might be better to have a good prop shop have a look at it.
Your local prop shop can probably fix it up for about 1/2 the cost of new one, or they may trade yours in on a new or used one.
The best thing is not to play with it yourself unless you know what you are doing as you will likely do more damage than good.
How did you hit the ground with the prop while on the trailer?????
If the damage is not severe you might be able to fix it yourself. If you do this and it is not correct you will find out real quick with vibrations will using it.
I would take it to a prop shop and have them do it right.
post some pics so we can see how bad the damage is.
