AAA wood sold out!

GREAT PRICES

http://www.superiorbalsa.com/

This happens every once and awhile at Lone Star, and I'm sure with some of the other guys, too. Best thing to do is order alot when it is in stock to hoard up against the shortages. I have had success ordering from what Lone Star calls "open stock" and just specifying the softest wood they can find. I order twice as much, since it costs about half as much as contest wood. I find the open stock is typically much straighter than the 4-6 lb, and I can sort through the extra to find the lightest pieces. I built my new Time machine 50 exclusively from this wood and ended up with a 48 ounce ready to fly model, so the weight of the heavier wood was not a major impediment to an adequately light model. The one caveat I have is do not buy blocks for carving from open stock, or you will get a plank suitable for baseball but not carving.

Lots of balsa still left, some the Contest stuff, at 40% off. And it probably will go to 50% shortly.

Don't worry about the mule going blind 'til you get the cart loaded!

I don't know if Bud Nosen sells direct or not, but Webster's Hobby here in Seattle (they're gone now) stocked a lot of Nosen's wood, and it was nice, and it was straight...surprisingly so. Compared to SIG or Superior, it "stacked up" well. Pun intended, couldn't resist.

(for Dan) Steve

Edit: Check here, and you'll happily pay SIG prices: http://www.f1d.biz/

On Van Dyke just north of 9 mile

fernando;-)

http://www.aerogel.com/products.htm

If everyone wants a certain grade of wood, however, there can be periodic shortages which will be reflected in the price difference. However, instead of using 5 pound 1/16 inch wood to sheet foam wings, for instance, we can use 10 pound 1/32 wood. It is just as strong, produces a structure that is just as light, and doesn't soak up the dope as much. So it is even lighter in the end. Find uses for the heavier stuff and save money (and sometimes weight as well.) That way you can save the lighter wood for me when I need it.

While buying an oil tanker would stretch one's budget, the Corvette still uses a floor pan which has end-grain balsa sandwiched between upper and lower layers of, so I am told, formed steel sheet.

Back to first point, when the clerk asks "Paper or plastic?" at the grocery store, I always ask for paper, explaining that I am an enviromentalist who loves trees, who wants to see as many trees as possible flourishing upon our planet.

Balsa's been farmed for ever - wild balsa doesn't grow in the size and shape we need, it's got to be pruned as it grows, or you get a bush, not a tree. (Sorry, Dan, it isn't necessary to destroy virgin rain forest to make Corvettes - that's just an anti-environmentalist wet dream.. )

Yesterday, I needed some really light 3/8" sheet. To get it I had to pull my last 3" x36" of honest to goodness 4 lb wood from the attic and drive to Lone Star to get it cut.

Try to stay at least one airplane ahead in your wood stock. Selective buying will result in better quality, cheaper wood. And for what its worth, I build mostly from very carefully selected 6-7 lb wood and avoid too light weight "punky" wood for structural applications. If you weigh each piece when you buy it, you will find that quite a bit of "contest" balsa weighs more than 6 lb and there is quite a bit of light 5-6 lb wood sold as standard weight at lower prices than contest

Balsa's been farmed for ever - wild balsa doesn't grow in the size and shape we need, it's got to be pruned as it grows, or you get a bush, not a tree. (Sorry, Dan, it isn't necessary to destroy virgin rain forest to make Corvettes - that's just an anti-environmentalist wet dream.. )

Isky,

I'm not an expert on balsa or the growing of same, but my recollection from various articles in the modeling press is at variance with your statement that a balsa tree begins as a bush and is pruned to urge it into growing tall and straight.

Are you saying the C5 does not use balsa bits as a component? And I don't believe I said, even came close to concluding, that it is necessary to violate the jungle in order to make Corvettes. Hardly the only way, the only choice of materials, to get the desired result.

Wet dream? What a nice touch. Having been raised on a farm in the Yakima Valley of Washington state, I have impeccable credentials when it comes to proper stewardship (enviromentalism, if you wish) of the land. I practice this stewardship to this day, whether specifying paper bags instead of plastic, maintaining two compost bins--each the size of a Buick--as part and parcel of a rather large garden, using organic fertilizers exclusively in prodding veggies to maturation, the list runs on and on. But you seem to have made some amazing leaps of logic and probably don't want to hear about the rest of the story.