Balsa --A business opportunity--Need help

Hello everybody from Brasil. Am writing this post because I need your input and help. It is evident that there is an opportunity to start a business supplying balsa to the modelers. Everybody is complaining about the lack of a source of first quality balsa with a 4 to 6 lb./ft3 density. I have my two children Sofia(20) and Thiago(19) plus my grandsons Arif(21) and Al 18) working on how to start a distributing business via the internet of Balsa. They are having trouble finding a source of balsa. Would anybody have Riley Wootens e mail and telephone number? I would like to call him to ask him how he did his business at Lonestar. I would also appreciate all the comments that you may have as to the type of service that we should provide. Any suggestions that you may have will be wellcome and appreciated. If this business happens I want it to be an excellent service to the modelers. Many thanks-- Thomas Cas

Thomas - there are plenty of suppliers to the modeller - there is just a shortage of good Balsa wood available worldwide. We have a local company that cuts balsa - and a LOT of it - but from 2-3 40ft container loads - they may get 1-2 blocks of "good" wood.

if you can find a good supplier -then go for it - are you goint o cut and sand the sheets - or are you going to buy precut and just disptribute?

Dr. Case is a respected and highly successful businessman...CEO of Brazil's Catho Group. Should he choose to pursue this venture you may rest assured that it will be---like everything else he does---First Class.

As such, I would encourage all serious builders/flyers to respond privately to him and answer his questions...especially regarding his request for contact information for Riley Wooten.

Mike Keville

I was very imressed with the quality of balsa used on all of the Brazilian models when the Air Force of Tucanos was at the Brodak event.
See Ya

Peabody

www.gscb.us / www.richpeabody.com

It would certainly make good business sense to cut balsa in South America and ship the finished product to the end user. A lot better than shipping logs halfway around the world and disposing of the offal in North America or Europe.

-------------------------

In the meantime, Balsa USA, located in the UP, continues to do a great job of cutting Equadorian logs and shipping product to same day it was E-ordered.

I just have to admire anyone starting a balsa wood business. The capital outlay for tooling must be something awesome. Also the future seems to point toward composites and/or molded plastics. Some will stick with balsa forever, but I think the demand for balsa will diminish in the future.

Good luck.

Floyd in OR

Floyd,
While I would not argue that the demand for 4-6 lb balsa will likely decrease, the demand for balsa is constantly increasing for industrial uses such as ship building.
In fact it's this increase, especially by emerging industrial countries like China that tend to make our supply harder to get.
Balsa is still an excellent material, especially in terms of strenght ot weight, and is actually used in a lot of the composite materials that you mention.

Randy C

Hello Thomas:
     How is the great country of Brazil? When I was in grade
school our Atlas showed large areas of Brazil marked as
"unexplored" mainly up the Amazon and its
tributaries. As a young man I always wanted to go and explore,
but life has a habit of getting in the way. If you still have
some of this unexplored territory left it might well be your
golden opportunity. There seem to be quite a few distributors
and retailers of balsa and they all seem to have a problem
finding enough wood to saisfy all of their customers. If you
could find, log, saw,and distribute balsa you might just be
dollars ahead. Vertical integration of the operation would
eleminate a great number of the problems that most
distributers seem to be experiencing. The operation of the
divisions would take a great deal of expertese and knowhow,
but we are all looking for a job are we not? And you seem to
have plenty of help, just an idea of course. 
     If you ever come to Houston, Texas give me a shout. We
can chew the fat about model aircraft and balsa wood.

sincerely;

Wayne Scruggs aka irongate

>I just have to admire anyone starting a balsa wood business.
>The capital outlay for tooling must be something awesome.

>Good luck.
>
>Floyd in OR

Floyd,

The tooling required is probably in your home workshop, is hardly a capital outley of awesome proportions.

Were it not for the waste of the kerf, one can do a dandy job on a table saw. We're talking about glorified and spiffed-up bandsaws for the actual cutting, a drum sander or two to bring the material to dimensions. And there are other ways to cut/dimension the wood, none of which are a lot of money.

Dan

>It would certainly make good business sense to cut balsa in
>South America and ship the finished product to the end user.
>A lot better than shipping logs halfway around the world and
>disposing of the offal in North America or Europe.
>

Paul,

Your idea is nonsense, let alone good business sense. Ship the finished product from South America?! Oh yeah, I'll wait...

The way these things are done is to bring the raw material to the U.S. In the case of balsa I suppose one can still buy the logs and import them, but in order to reduce waste and shipping costs I believe the bulk of the balsa coming in has been cut into blocks, loaded into a container and then transported here by ship.

Once here, the trick is to leave as much balsa as possible in block form rather than cutting it up based upon speculation. In other words, cut it to order, albeit with some pre-set minimum stock level on hand at all times.

While I have no idea who supplied Riley with wood--and would not say even if I did know--he did tell me his supplier worked with him in getting the lighter grades. Of course that meant a higher cost per board foot; and this cost was no doubt more than just the added handling costs associated with whatever methods used to grade the wood.

Dan

Dear Mr. Case,

I found Riley's contact information on the PAMPA membership listing. I do not know if it is current. There is a mailing address and an E-mail address, but no phone contact.

Go to this web address to look up his information:
http://www.stuntnews.org

It will be under "Home" at the top, then membership listing. You will need to log in or create a user ID if you don't already have one.

Good luck,I hope this works out.

I don't have any contact info but the last time I was at Lone Star the balsa blocks were packaged in boxes that had Lone Star Ecuador on them. That leads me to believe that Riley was also vertically integrated. Good luck with your endeavor.