The first step in preparing the blades is to bend them. I have a nice aluminum mandrel for this.



As you can see in the photo below, the tips of the blades are still straight. In order to provide a nice radius all the way to the tip, I bend the blades a little more than required and then cut them back to where the bend actually starts.



You can just barely see the bend start at the dropout in the photo below. I have slotted the blades for the dropouts. A nice tight fit is critical. These will be brazed in with bronze rod. I use bronze for this application rather than silver because it fills in the gaps better. You can see there is a large space to fill.