Good block hollowing tools?

What tools (and where to get) are best for hollowing fuselage and wingtip balsa blocks? There has got to be better ones than my old exacto brand stuff....

>What tools (and where to get) are best for hollowing
>fuselage and wingtip balsa blocks? There has got to be
>better ones than my old exacto brand stuff....
>
>Steve B.

Steve,

You need to direct your query to Keith Varley, whom I hope will take my hint.

And then let Mr. Google help you find a small site with the key words "Scary Sharp," this first mentioned here by Iskandar.

Oh, and toss the X-acto stuff in the trash.

>>What tools (and where to get) are best for hollowing
>>fuselage and wingtip balsa blocks? There has got to be
>>better ones than my old exacto brand stuff....
>>
>>Steve B.
>
>
>Steve,
>
>You need to direct your query to Keith Varley, whom I hope
>will take my hint.
>
>And then let Mr. Google help you find a small site with the
>key words "Scary Sharp," this first mentioned here by
>Iskandar.
>
>Oh, and toss the X-acto stuff in the trash.
>
>Dan
>
>
>

Ron B.
F4Fguy

Dan:
I usually agree with you but(there's always a but),if you do the "scary sharp" thing with the Exacto 1/2" half round and the large full round cutters they work just fine,unlike the rest of the Exacto junk.On the other hand,if you're willing to spend some green,the Miller's Falls wood carving gouges are hard to beat.The set I'm using was given to me when I was a teenager(don't ask)and they're still my first choice.

LAST EDITED ON Jan-09-04 AT 06:18 PM (CDT)
 
Dan, tell them about the method used to hollow trees, like burn out the core. Makes them light and they float. No, wait, that's for boats. Never mind. Steve told me you just luv these.

I think the small diamond-shaped Exacto tool works pretty well. And the round one too. But they need to be sharp. And they tend for follow the wood grain, particularly in harder, heavier wood.

If you're like me and use the harder balsa, you might want to use a Dremel sanding drum bit. It's messy, but works well on harder material.

[photo not recovered: 3e69bb3870f12ad5.jpg]

"If you lost your left arm, your right arm would be left."

I too like the exacto round rings. Designed to be pulled.

They do need to be sharp.

And no dust.

Use a leather strop to hone the edges. Once you can shave the hair off your hand, they are sharp enough.

Is this the hair on the palm or back of a hand??

>Is this the hair on the palm or back of a hand??

Good one Ty!

LAST EDITED ON Jan-12-04 AT 04:32 PM (CDT)
 
I always found the hair on my neck to be a valuable sensory aid for wind direction (a la Dennis Conner)

And the hair on my palm was .... a detriment to good handle contrrrol!

>What tools (and where to get) are best for hollowing
>fuselage and wingtip balsa blocks? There has got to be
>better ones than my old exacto brand stuff....
>
>Steve B.

Dremel sanding drum taped to a Shop Vac!!!! Balsa eater!!!!

This looks like a good one to me (if a little expensive)...

http://www.clstunt.com/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID1/7192.html

Tim

Flex shaft.....vac.....Dust......10 mins.......hollow

Zilla, Tim, Scott,
You three all got it.
Put a Kutzall or sanding drum on a Flex shaft. A Wood Hog. Speedy.

Hi there; First it should be said that you really should mold your top and bottom blocks wherever possible because it is the way to achieve the absolutely lightest product and it costs you much less. One of my Saturns used 1/16 sheets for them and the other on used 3/32 sheet. You really cant carve a big block that accurately. I always try for 1/8 thickness in my carved ones. And hold it up to a light and you will start to see it shining through. For small carved areas the Kutzall tools are great or simply a sanding drum which is very cheap, but nothing beats the pleasure of gouging out a block if you have the right tools and they are very very sharp. The best source around here is Lee Valley tools, they only have stores in Canada but they sell on line and their catalogue is a must for learning about the methods of sharpening .They are a source of many things to me being within walking distance of my house . I find the use of felt wheels and their green sharpening compound to make the job of maintaining an edge are probably the least labor intensive method. I was lucky that my father,a wood carver had many gouges and as a child I was always fascinated to see the big white curly pieces of wood all over the floor.Beautiful. Now I have come to be the owner of some of his carving tools.Being in the jewellery manufacturing business I quickly learned about felt wheels they are called laps to jewellers. They use very hard ones to maintain the flatness of a surface and softer ones to conform to a rounder surface. The big factor for most of us is the very high cost. Some of the very best gouges are from Henry Taylor in Sheffield England Retailing for $30 to $50 each. For fast and cheap work you cant beat power carving. MY favorite and most usefull tools are bent gouges and spoon gouges (see picture attached)Gee it takes a lot of training to be a good wood carver but as you learn , the pleasure is great. Good carving and dont push the gouge right through the block into your hand ,eh? (obligitory canadian expression ) ? Keith (back bacon eater) Varley

Here's the link for the correct page at Robart, to load faster. http://www.robart.com/New%20Pages/Tools.html Nice looking product, by the way. Steve

Thanks Kieth (and all). I'm still doing the kit thing and most full fuse ships have at least a fuselage top and a cowl to carve and hollow (though I used to skip it when I was a kid). I'd much prefer spending some green on a few well designed tools to make the job a little more gratifying and less tedious. I especially like the idea of the tungsten carbide burrs (and a flex shaft) and a shop vac for roughing out quick without the mess. I'd seen the curved gouges and was looking for some concurrence before buying a couple. Thank's for the tip on sharpening with buffing tools, I'll put that on the list of things to get familiar with. Sharp is good!

LAST EDITED ON Jan-09-04 AT 11:45 PM (CDT)
 
Steve,

While I generally use molded balsa for blocks, there still ends up being a lot of hollowing you have to do. The cowl, maybe a simulated canopy. Anyway, here's the tools I use. A couple of them anyway. Just some brass tube with a loop that's been sharpened and soldered to the end at an angle. Pretty easy to sharpen with an x-acto knife. The brass is pretty soft. They work really well. I actually have about a dozen I've made in different sizes. Both sides of the loop are sharpened so you can drag it or push it.

Randy Powell

Edit: typos

Now those are neat tools. Great idea.

>Now those are neat tools. Great idea.

I made some somewhat similar to that, but I didn't have a whole lot of luck with them, because they were annoying to try to keep sharp. I might hit my Dad up to make me something out of old hacksaw blades. He likes doing that sort of stuff. Maybe a handle with a semi-circular "hoop" on the bottom, with a sharp edge. Heck, you could make it out of music wire ground to a sharp edge.

I have to beleive that someone somewhere makes something like this.

The sanding drum and carbide wheel really do work well, but I would prefer being able to cut. A vacuum cleaner will hold down the dust, but running my flex-shaft tool and vacuum in my one-bedroom apartment for an hour or so might not be fully appreciated by my neighbors.

They do, they're called scorps. Highland Hardware, Garrett Wade, Lee Valley, Woodcraft, about any high end woodworking supplier.

Tools

Actually, those round and diamond shaped pull tools that were mentioned previously are X-acto's version of scorps.
You can also look in the catalogs mentioned for Warren Cutlery (and others') version of the "crooked knife". The Warren ones I have come in right, left, or both sides sharp, two sizes and a couple of different curves. Got 'em years ago for whittling spoons but they work great on balsa blocks.
Key to using any of those type tools is to learn to sharpen them well.

I also noticed later looking in the woodworking catalogs in the carving section some have "hook knives", probably very similar to the "crooked". I agree, you'd have to keep'em pretty sharp, and they don't look all to easy to sharpen.

Too many tools, too little time,

Tools

You are probably correct. I think the name "crooked knife" came from some native Alaskans.

George

Hmmm...wonder if they were near Halibut Guts? OS?

You guys can all throw your X acto tools my way. They work fine for me.

Bill

Termites won't eat wood that is too close to the light. Soooo... Set up your block with even lighting appropriate to your wall thickness and turn a batch of termites loose in it. You can even keep the bottom wall if you want.