jeff fox - Crafting History, One Propeller at a Time
Welcome to the workshop of Jeff Fox, where tradition meets precision. With a deep respect for aviation heritage, Jeff handcrafts wooden propellers for vintage aircraft — each one a blend of craftsmanship, performance, and artistry.
What started as a passion for classic planes has grown into a lifelong dedication to preserving their legacy. Every propeller is made with care, using a mix of time-honoured techniques, modern ingenuity and high-quality materials to ensure both beauty and airworthiness. Whether you're restoring a historic aircraft or building a replica, you're getting a piece of aviation history — made by hand, made to fly.
Jeff is not your average shed tinkerer. A builder by trade, he’s also a skilled designer, joiner, vintage car and motorcycle restorer, and wood carver. His passion for craftsmanship runs deep — his reputation unmatched.
Jeff’s workshop (located around an hour north of Wellington, New Zealand) is a living museum: rows of gleaming vintage motorcycles, shelves of rare car parts, stacks of well-worn tools, and of course, the carefully arranged woods and machinery used to create his one-of-a-kind propellers. What began in the early 1990s as a sideline to his building job and vintage car restoration work, quickly took flight — literally —when Jeff started doing woodwork for aircraft enthusiasts. One request led to another, and before long, propeller-making became a cornerstone of his craft, and a fulltime job.
It was through the vintage car movement that he met the late Stuart Tantrum. When Stuart found that Jeff was making wooden aircraft propellers, he asked Jeff to make him a propeller for an Avro 504 that he was rebuilding. Jeff made the propeller and that led to him being introduced to Peter Jackson (now Sir Peter Jackson) by Stuart. Peter’s passion for World War 1 aircraft has led to an industry in New Zealand that has seen the restoration of existing aircraft of that era as well as the building from ‘scratch’ of new aircraft from that period.
Today, Jeff is one of the only people in New Zealand, and one of possibly a few in the world who hand create wooden propellers for vintage and homebuilt aircraft. His work has graced planes ranging from pre-WWI, through to Tiger & Gypsy Moths, British and German types of WWI period especially, Sopwith Camels, Fokker triplanes and other replica aircraft. He’s created custom propellers for not only Sir Peter Jackson’s company ‘The Vintage Aviator’ based in Wellington (also at Hood Aerodrome, Masterton), Croydon Aircraft Company in Gore, Classic Aero Machining Services based at Omaka Airfield in Marlborough, among others.
Each propeller Jeff makes is a blend of engineering precision and artistic dedication. Using only the finest hand-selected woods — like sapele mahogany, American ash, and European beech — he laminates multiple layers in a fan pattern, then carves, sands, balances, and varnishes them to exacting standards. His custom-built copy router follows hand-carved masters, ensuring each prop is historically accurate and flight-ready. The whole process from selecting the wood to fitting to an aircraft takes anywhere from 100 to 300+ hours.
Jeff’s process is painstaking, personal, and deeply respectful of aviation history. With word-of-mouth as his only real advertisement (until now), he quietly continues to keep the legacy of early aviation alive — one hand-crafted propeller at a time.
Be sure to view the gallery HERE, to behold the stunning work for yourself.
