Contest grade balsa - and other woods now at Aloft!

[Wayne]

We are switching to a different wood supplier, and I am VERY pleased with the new wood. The balsa that we have been stocking is now going to be even nicer. I know a number of you liked our old wood, for good reason, it is far better than the typical Midwest junk found at other stores.

I was looking to have more choices in species and special cuts, so tried a different supplier that could fill those needs. The order just arrived and I am super pleased with the quality. Not only is their normal grade AAA balsa very nice, but we can also source "contest grade" from them, something we need for a few of the kits we will be manufacturing soon.

In addition to the balsa, we will be stocking some bass and spruce as well as a bunch of sizes of dowels. I personally had never played with bass and was curious. I'm pretty sure you will see some bass in some of our future kits.

We are still processing it all, and will be adding it to our site very soon.

Should you have the need we can also source a few hardwoods like walnut, cherry, maple, mahogany and oak. Just let us know if you have any needs for those species.

I know it is odd, but I have really been looking forward to getting this order in. To my shock the staff have been equally excited processing it. Good stuff.

 

[Red]

Woot...I'm REALLY happy about this. Finding quality wood has been a nightmare recently.

 

[thenated0g]

My most used balsa is 2" aileron or end stock. I like to use them for elevons. I actually just grabbed some 2.5" by 3/8 stuff for my graugan and am pretty happy with it is has very little twist which is sometimes a problem. The inconsistencies in a batch when i order form other places. One will be heavier and strong and the other side even in my hands i can tell its lighter.

I have been meaning to use some basswood in place of what i usually use for I-Beam spars in my foam builds, which is 2-3mm fiberglass kite rods. Just havent ran out of my rods yet.
What lengths you going to be carrying, the standard half and full meter stuff?

edit- thats another reason i use kite rods, you can get them in really long lengths like 72"

 

[Wayne]

You might want to use spruce for your I-beams. Currently we have stocked more Spruce in spar sizes, and the longest lengths are 48". We usually avoid ordering in long lengths due to shipping problems with longer products. If you like we can always special order some long carbon or glass rods or tubes. But needs to be maybe 25 or more to be worth your while due to the shipping expense. Probably take about 45 days to get.

I have not yet looked at what would be needed to ship long items that are sort of fragile and a low price point. It is easy to ship it in a strong box, but doe anyone want to pay me to do that for an item that costs a few dollars? Probably not.

 

[Wayne]

Just updated the site with the new stock and for most all items the price dropped. In some cases dropped a lot.

Will be adding new items during the work week.

Have shown the new wood to several customers that are active wood builders and they were as excited as myself over the new wood. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

[rcsoar4fun]

Good to hear about the balsa.

Basswood can work fine, it is a little less strong than sitka spruce, but also tends to have nice straight grain with very little runout.

One thing you might consider, given your CNC and laser cutters, is selling pieces precut for scarfing. A step scarf in a piece of basswood would be super easy to setup on a CNC machine, but more difficult to do at home.

 

[Wayne]

We could do that - If anyone has the need, or other cutter chores, just let us know what you are after. It might take us a bit of time to turn it around, but probably do things in a day or three.

 

[TyFlies]

Wayne, I’ll be making a couple sets of horizontal and vertical stabilizers for ODR slope racer builds. Strength and durability is more important than weight for this project. Planning on ordering some of your new balsa sheets instead of taking my chances with the janky stuff at my local store. I’m wondering about the difference between your Contest Grade and normal grade- regarding strength and which type is probably less likely to warp over time. Guessing the Contest grade is lighter, but wondering if it’s stronger or maybe a bit weaker.

Wondering which type you think is better for this project. I don’t mind the price difference. And I know there‘s no certainty about individual piece quality, warping and just plain bad luck. Planning on ordering it in 3/16 and will sand thinner towards the trailing edges.

Any thoughts would help.

Thanks for sourcing the good stuff!!

 

[Wayne]

Only use contest grade if you are looking to save weight, or make sanding really easy. I would consider contest grade as fragile.

You will want the normal balsa sheet.

With this said, you may want to check your local hobby shop as most people pick out the light weight stuff and leave behind the heavy gnarly stuff. I think this heavier wood will be perfect for your application. This could save you some shipping $. It is at least worth a look to see what they have.

Any wood can warp. I'm not a wood expert (we do have some here!) I think the main culprit is moisture changes. The thinner woods are very prone to warping. We use some thin stuff on our micro gliders. We just got a fresh shipment of wood, and all looked great. We keep it in the climate controlled part of our space, and after a few days we found the wood stack had taken on a lot of warping. We get a little mist of moisture on the wood and compress it under some weight, next morning back to perfect sheets.

We store our wood flat, but it is not good enough. I'm thinking we might cut up some heavy 1/2" plywood (or similar) to sit on top of the stacks to keep them from warping in storage. This is mostly an issue with the thinnest sheets.

Anyone else have a more elegant solution?

p.s. I see the same issue when visiting lumber yards. I do wonder how much lumber gets trashed due to warpage.

 

[TyFlies]

Appreciate the advice!
A build idea…. a sloper I know carves out a strip of the balsa horizontal stab about 1/3 the way back from the leading edge, just wide enough for a strip of basswood. He glues in a basswood strip for strength, but it might help with long term warping too. A spar of sorts. Could use a thin carbon rod buried in a trough for the same effect.
When i get the balsa I’ll keep it pressed. It will be a month or so until I start the builds.

 

[TyFlies]

Wayne, My LHS has been out of 4 inch balsa for awhile. I'm wondering If I were to order some 3/16 4" balsa from Aloft, could one of your guys do a little bit of sorting and pick out a couple of heavier durable looking sheets that might be decent for a couple of 60 inch racer tails. And I'm thinking it might be ideal to cut the 36" sheet in half to save on the shipping box dimension cost.
I can put this in the order notes, but wanted to reach out and see if this is in the realm of possibilities. Totally understand that there are no guarantees regarding durability etc.
Guess I'd better order a couple of servos too : )

Only use contest grade if you are looking to save weight, or make sanding really easy. I would consider contest grade as fragile.

You will want the normal balsa sheet.

With this said, you may want to check your local hobby shop as most people pick out the light weight stuff and leave behind the heavy gnarly stuff. I think this heavier wood will be perfect for your application. This could save you some shipping $. It is at least worth a look to see what they have.

Any wood can warp. I'm not a wood expert (we do have some here!) I think the main culprit is moisture changes. The thinner woods are very prone to warping. We use some thin stuff on our micro gliders. We just got a fresh shipment of wood, and all looked great. We keep it in the climate controlled part of our space, and after a few days we found the wood stack had taken on a lot of warping. We get a little mist of moisture on the wood and compress it under some weight, next morning back to perfect sheets.

We store our wood flat, but it is not good enough. I'm thinking we might cut up some heavy 1/2" plywood (or similar) to sit on top of the stacks to keep them from warping in storage. This is mostly an issue with the thinnest sheets.

Anyone else have a more elegant solution?

p.s. I see the same issue when visiting lumber yards. I do wonder how much lumber gets trashed due to warpage.

 

[Wayne]

Sure - as stated just add to the order notes. We can issues a refund for shipping savings too. These long boxes can get spendy.