Hello, John Talley here with Boats.net. Today we're going to be discussing
the difference in between stainless and regular aluminum propellers, and which
one you may need for your application. As we all know, most of the boats out there
under 150 horsepower they typically come with an aluminum propeller. But the real
trick is maybe you need something a little bit more robust. That is where the
stainless comes into play. So which one do you need for your application? Well a
good rule of thumb is if you're a hundred and twenty five horsepower or
less, you want to go ahead and go with the aluminum prop. Reason being, your
higher horsepower engines 150 and up, like this 225 sitting behind me, they put
so much stress on the prop because that is its bite, that is its wheel, that is
its tire. That is how it gets traction to move the boat through the water. With an
aluminum one, with that much horsepower, it tends to actually bend the actual
prop and that in effect reduces your ratio, so you're gonna have a lower top
speed. Now the trade-off is, if you put a stainless prop on a lower horsepower
engine, the sheer weight of one of these is going to reduce the power of a lower
horsepower engine. Whereas an aluminum one, it's easy for it to spin and doesn't
sap so much power. Let's say you do have a higher horsepower engine that requires
you to get a stainless prop. There's still other decisions that you need to
consider as you're going through this. Now if you're in an offshore condition
and there's very little chance of you ever hitting anything, then you can go in
with what they call a pressed hub scenario, which is this type here. Now if
you're running in shallower water, where you do run the risk of actually hitting
something with the prop, then you want to consider one that has an insert. Now the
advantage of this type of setup, it has an insert that is replaceable. So should
you strike something, it damages the insert and hopefully not the prop itself
or your output shaft. Now if you're fishing in a shallow area, stainless is
definitely the way to go because you're inevitably you've got to let it dig into
the bottom. With a stainless it can just cut through that without a problem.
With the aluminum, it's going to end up eroding it away and causing it to fail
way sooner than the stainless unit. Let's talk about some of the advantages that
the aluminum props have over the stainless ones. The first one of course
is the cost difference. On a good sized prop, you can expect to pay three to four
times as much as an aluminum one to get to a stainless steel one. Let's talk
about some of the disadvantages now with the aluminum prop. First, they're not
as strong as a stainless, and in a high horsepower, high rpm scenario, the actual
blades are gonna bend. And when they do that, it reduces your, well, your top-end
speed because it's changed the ratio by virtue of it bending it down. Now the way
the manufacturers typically compensate for this weakness? They make the blades
thicker, and by doing so that's more drag that they're actually adding on the
blade as it goes through the water. Now if you take a strike on an aluminum one?
More than likely, it is going to tear one of your blades that's going to require
it either to be replaced, or you're gonna have to find a very talented repair shop
that could actually weld it up and reshape it. So what is the final decision?
Well there really isn't one. It's all determined by how much you want to
invest in a prop, how you're going to use your boat, what
environment it is going to be in, and the performance level that you're looking
for. For most people, an aluminum prop will do just fine, and you could actually
have an extra one on board and still not approach the cost of a single stainless
one. Now if you're one of those where you've got a high horsepower, high
performance boat, you're gonna have to go with the stainless. The only other
decision you'll have to make, do you go with a pressed hub or do you go with a
replacement insert for the hub. Now that you've made up your mind as to whether
or not you want to go aluminum or stainless, why don't you come see us at Boats.net
and we can get you taken care of. If you still have questions determining
which one's gonna work best for your application, why don't you give us a call and
we can walk you through that process. We just want to say thank you for shopping
here with us at Boats.net. Stay safe out there, and we will see you in the next
video. Y'all have a great day.