posted 07-23-2008 07:16 PM ET (US)     

Yamaha probably needed it's own prop manufacturing company, and Stiletto is probably suffering from the weak market and competition from Merc's offerings and the interchangeable hub concept. Foreign companies are using a weak dollar/economy to buy us up cheap.

posted 07-23-2008 08:44 PM ET (US)            

All large Stiletto and Turbo propellers are (as of 2008) square bore (Flo-Torq) hub props so that has already happened.

posted 07-24-2008 12:17 PM ET (US)            

quote:

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Stiletto and Turbo propellers are manufactured by the same company, Precision Propellers. The primary difference is that the Turbo propellers are manufactured using a new generation, computer controled advanced manufacuring process which allows for mass production with little or no varience. Stiletto propellers are primarily still hand crafted. Turbo propellers are repackaged as Honda and Suzuki OEM propellers. In addition, I believe they also now manufacture at least one line of Mercury propellers (gasp!) (Note: My sources at Turbo won't quite come clean about this, but have hinted around at it.)

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Looks like the cat is officially out of the bag.

Precision has been manufacturing a portion of the Yamaha propeller line for over a year now, on a contract basis. The propellers were, and will continue to be, produced at the "Turbo Propellers" plant, which is the state of the art shop.

Unlike Honda, which rebadged original Turbo propeller designs as Honda, Yamaha provided its own manufacturing specs; Yamaha propellers are not available in the Turbo line-up.

posted 07-24-2008 12:36 PM ET (US)            

quote:

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I believe they also now manufacture at least one line of Mercury propellers

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posted 07-25-2008 10:20 AM ET (US)            

For example, if you buy a Yamaha three blade Performance Series propeller, you are essentially buying a Stiletto Advantage.

Precision also has a new low cost propeller line waiting in the wings. I am not sure if they will now bring it online or not.

To get back to some of Larry's wild speculation, Precision Propeller has been doing increasingly well in recent years. Stiletto has not been suffering from Mercury's competition but rather the other way around. Mercury has been making propellers for longer than Precision. It is Mercury propeller sales that Stiletto takes away.

posted 07-25-2008 02:58 PM ET (US)         

In Mercury's lines of three bladed props, each pitch is designed and cast with a diffent diameter, which gets smaller as pitch increases. Within a given propeller line, the diameter usually increases for propellers used on slower boats, and decreasess for faster boats. Stiletto, and others like Michigan Wheel, seemed to have missed this design pronicpal, and cheap out on the design and manufacturing, and just cast "one diameter fits all", and then bend the blades differently for each pitch, hurting efficiency and overall performance. Even then, it seems they can't seem to get the stated pitch correct, most likely caused by improper pitch to diameter ratios.

Any cheap product like Stiletto will take some market share from the premium manufacturer, but people who know propellers and demand the best, buy Mercury. Incidentally I've seens tons of Yamahas running Merc props to improeve the perfromance.

posted 07-26-2008 12:55 AM ET (US)            

There is no rule that it is necessarily better to have a unique diameter of propeller for each pitch of that propeller. That is a poor gauge of a propeller's quality. Mercury manufactures a number if lines of propellers where the diameter is constant across the range of pitches offered. So much for that theory.

It should be noted that Precision propeller manufactures line of propellers where the diameters are not all the same.

Also note that propeller manufacturers do not "bend the blades differently for each pitch". Each propeller is a unique design and a unique casting regardless of its pitch.

As for "[getting] the stated pitch correct," that makes little sense. All propellers have a stated pitch, the theoretical distance they would travel on one rotation through a material that allowed no slip. But what Larry does not seem to understand is that all boat propellers have variable pitch blades. Every point on any blade has a different pitch.

One can only average the theoretical distance and round it to the nearest whole number and call that " the pitch". But even then some propellers will *seem* to slip more or less, but that is something of an illusion. There is far nor involved than just a piece of metal screwing through water.

This is why different models of Mercury propellers seem to have hugely varying prop slip numbers. I certainly would not say Mercury makes cheap props because their prop slip numbers are all over the board. That's silly.

Mercury has been making propellers for a very long time. They do it very well. Are Mercury propellers "the best"? How does one answer that? How do you gauge that? It is, in fact, an unanswerable question. What can be answered is the question: For this boat, with that motor, operated under these conditions, what propeller is best?

In some cases the answer will be a Mercury Propeller. In other cases it will be a Stiletto propeller. In yet others it may be a PowerTech or some other. For every prop made, there is a boat/motor combination for which it is the very best choice. To argue that "my brand" of propellers is the best and all others are cheap is absurd and asserting such a position demonstrates a deep ignorance of propellers.

posted 08-04-2008 09:27 AM ET (US)            

http://www.tradeonlytoday.com/index.php/home/2-web-exclusive/ 495436-yamaha-buys-precision-propeller-will-retain-workers

posted 08-06-2008 04:12 PM ET (US)         

The marine industry is in the midst of a massive downturn in sales, which includes the boat manufacturers, the engine manufacturers, the OEM parts companies, and the aftermarket parts companies, of which Precision/Stiletto is a component.
And SS props are a very high cost, non-essential item in these days of tight money. Many will just slap on an aluminum and be happy.

The idea the Stiletto props is booming while everybody else is dying is just ridiculous. Mercury, at least still has new engines to send out with their props. What new engines come with Stiletto branded props?

If Precision is Yamaha's prop vendor, maybe Yamaha is taking them over to keep a supplier from going under? Who knows. Yamaha, and other Japanese companies have done this more than once before.

posted 08-06-2008 05:14 PM ET (US)            

many small minds here, and it turns out the E300 is a gas pig, by the way...notice how noone is writing about it?

posted 08-06-2008 08:19 PM ET (US)            

I for one am excited for them. Hopefully Yamaha will put some R and D money into the company and come out with a more consistent line up of props.

Who knows.......maybe the black steel props will get chucked. :^)

posted 08-07-2008 01:19 AM ET (US)            

The very first thing one does to improve their fuel mileage is replace the low cost aluminum prop with a decent, well fit stainless steel propeller, hence the great demand for after market props.

And for those special circumstances where one really needs an aluminum propeller, Stiletto now offers those too: the Stiletto Ativa series, Flo-Torq compatible no less.

posted 08-07-2008 08:55 AM ET (US)            

I hope they improve there prop line-up and make some changes/additions. There are significant inconsistency's within certain groups of current Yamaha propellers.