Mike Smith, a new Gyronut from Illinois, sent me a set of four beautifully cut balsa core rotor blades, perfect in size for testing on the small gyros such as the "Simple-G".... These blades were machine cut, accurate, and relatively smooth....
Here's an end-on view of the blades... showing the nice upper surface of the SG6042 airfoil Mike used. This airfoil has been found to be one of the best airfoils for model Autogyro rotor blades. The darkened area along the aft edge of the blades was created by the application of thin CA glue. Which I feel is necessary to protect the thin/sharp trailing edge.
Note the bottom of the blades. The slight undercambor at the trailing edge, present in the SG6042.... is there, though difficult to see here. A hardwood (of about 1/8" thickness) is recommended to add strength and prevent leading edge damage.
Here you
can see that I have made a final light sanding and glued the carbon fiber strips
and blade mounting plates in place.... the CF strips provide
excellent strength and aid very much in preventing a vertical shear of the
blades. Note also the placement of small lead pieces between
the chord line and leading edge, near the tip of each
blade. These are used to properly balance and aid the blade
spin characteristics. 
I covered
mine with the same "sticky back" tape that is used on the "ZAGI" electric flying
wing model. This was easy and worked very well on this size
blade, however you could used other coverings...I mounted all four of the blades on the smaller size of the Wayman Delta hub, and mounted the rotor assembly on a Simple-G for testing. Results indicate the blades have excellent lift and I can highly recommend them.... I was able to reduce the aft tilt trim of the rotor by at least 5 degrees. Mike has indicated he is interested in making and selling them in sets for anyone who would like them..
Contact (E-Mail) Mike Smith at: rmstech@core.com for all the details.
rev..12-2003..jb