{"id":3895,"date":"2019-09-13T15:14:37","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T19:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/blog\/?p=3895"},"modified":"2019-09-13T15:14:37","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T19:14:37","slug":"balsa-basics-in-the-shop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/balsa-basics-in-the-shop\/","title":{"rendered":"Balsa Basics – in the Shop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I left on vacation, I ordered some 1\/16″ balsa sheets for laser cutting as I was nearly out.\u00a0 As planned they arrived when I was away.\u00a0 Today, I had to open the box and weigh the sheets.\u00a0 I weigh them so that I can better control my laser cutting – I mean, provide you with the best product I can.<\/p>\n

Since the beginning of the year, I have been buying from National Balsa because Sig had a fire in their balsa cutting room and they are not yet back in full operation.\u00a0 Sig always had pretty good balsa, so I was happy – and besides, I get no discount from National, so it costs me nearly twice as much as Sig.<\/p>\n

This particular batch may be the lightest overall batch I have ever received.\u00a0 I ordered 100 sheets of 1\/16″x3″x36″ and 20 sheets of the same size but from their “Aero Light Bargain Grade” – just to collect light wood (I don’t know why – I have more than I could ever use).\u00a0 National just lumps this all together without labels or separation, so I have no idea which is which (although the bargain grade usually has discolorations).\u00a0 Anyway, I was surprised at the results.<\/p>\n

Notes:\u00a0 I weigh each sheet in grams<\/strong> and annotate it.\u00a0 This weight does NOT account for variations in thickness, width, or length.\u00a0 For my everyday kits I divide the stock into 12-13 grams, 14-16 grams, and 17-19 grams.\u00a0 I toss out (save for give-aways) anything over 20 grams.\u00a0 That means my short kits are cut from wood that is between 6.8 pounds per cubic foot to 11.2 pounds per cubic foot<\/strong>.\u00a0 I usually try to make weight sensitive planes (NoCals, Peanuts, etc) out of the lighter and larger planes out of the heavier.<\/p>\n

Usually, I will get a handful of sheets below 13 grams and maybe up to 20% of sheets over 20 grams.\u00a0 This batch had a different distribution.<\/p>\n

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you might see annotations on some of your short kit sheets. This is the weight that I recorded for the full sheet and it is in grams<\/p><\/div>\n

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the sheets separated by weight<\/p><\/div>\n

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a histogram showing the number of sheets received for each gram increment. YES, YOU SEE THAT RIGHT – I received 1 sheet of 3.4# wood, 3 sheets of 4# wood, 1 sheet of 4.5# wood and only about 4 scrap (heavy) pieces. And 12 grams (highest count at 20 sheets) is 6.7# wood.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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PROBLEM: sometimes the sheets are warped<\/p><\/div>\n

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BIG PROBLEM: sometimes there is variation in the 3″ nominal width<\/p><\/div>\n

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BIG PROBLEM: this sheet is over 1\/32″ under 3″ width<\/p><\/div>\n

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BIG PROBLEM: this sheet is almost 1\/16″ over the 3″ width<\/p><\/div>\n

Why is the width variation a problem?\u00a0 Often I don’t cut a single sheet at a time.\u00a0 I arrange my CAD files to a standard 3.0″ width.\u00a0 If the sheet width varies and I do not account for this, part of the second sheet will be cut on the first sheet – or the bottom of the second sheet will cut of the sheet.<\/p>\n

Now, back to cutting kits…oh,here’s a chart you might find useful (only for 1\/16″x3″x36″ sheets)<\/p>\n

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gram to pounds-per-cubic-foot conversion chart – for your enjoyment<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I left on vacation, I ordered some 1\/16″ balsa sheets for laser cutting as I was nearly out.\u00a0 As planned they arrived when I was away.\u00a0 Today, I had to open the box and weigh the sheets.\u00a0 I weigh … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-products"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}