Basa Wood

Balsa USA

Im lucky enough to live a little over an hour south of them though.

Is there wood usually pretty straight and consistant in weight, etc?

Definately. I believe thats what OMP uses. I recall seeing that statement on their site I think.

LHS. Good enough for a model.

Definately. I believe thats what OMP uses. I recall seeing that statement on their site I think.

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Well, if it works for them it will work for me.

My most recent batch of wood came from Balsa USA, but I normally use either Lonestar or Superior.

The Balsa USA stuff I got is consistent and straight, but a lot of it is just almost the weight of light pine... . I had the same problem with my most recent order from Superior and my most recent order from Lonestar.

Up until 6 months ago, I had gotten the most consistent and lightest wood from LoneStar, but then something happened worldwide. At that time and every order since, they have claimed they had no contest grade wood and all of their light AAA wood was gone/had been picked through.....

I think we have a bit of a 'light wood' shortage going on......

I always shop in person for my balsa -- you just never know what you're going to get if you mail-order the stuff.

Unfortunately, the LHS usually buys balsa "packs" and it looks as if all the wood comes from the same tree so there's very little choice in terms of weight and cut.

When I went looking for some nice light 1/16" sheet for the leading edge sheeting of my Burrito the other day all I could find was heavy quarter-grain which would almost certainly split and, even if it didn't, the extra weight would be too much.

So this week I'm driving a couple of hours to the next-nearest NSLHS (not so local hobby shop) to see if they can do better

LHS. Good enough for a model.

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well, when you build two models 4 months apart and you have to find another LHS because the closest one never restocked after you bought out all the 1/16" sheeting, or the sticks that are left in a certain size are all ones you've already rejected...

you start to wonder how much you'd save if you just dropped $100 on balsa to last a few seasons and mail ordered a decent sized lot.

-barrett

I guess I'm lucky. I live about 20 minutes away from a guy who imports it in fairly large quantities, mills it himself and sells it to all the hobby shops within a couple hundred mile radius. I just need to call him up, go down to his shop and I get to pick my own wood right out of his stock. He then sells it to me at wholesale (about 1/3 the cost of the same thing at the LHS) regardless of quantity. If the order is large he tends to get a bit lazy about counting up my order and starts guesstimating the numbers (always in my favour), and then likes to tack on a 25% discount on top everything. I built my profile edge for about $25 in wood (including ply) and that includes the fact that I overestimated and bought about 1 1/2 times more wood than I really needed. He will also custom cut odd sizes on the spot for no additional charge.

One of the true honest and fair businessmen around and a pleasure dealing with.

The LHS's around here dont really have a big supply of wood. Especially hard wood. Have any of yall ever bought sheets and cut your own strips? I wonder if a table saw would be to big or if they make a blade that would work for that?

Ask Paul or Jeremy, the cut there own sticks. You don't use a table saw, it wastes tons of wood. They have a knife type stripper, but I haven't seen it.

Hey CPLANT can you hook us up? Like a middle man to your bubby? Sounds like you might have the source dude!!

Thanks Gordo. I was thinking later about the table saw and realized you would loose 1/8" of wood for every cut. Not very cool.

Thanks Spastic. I just got back from my LHS and what wood they had was double what I would pay from lonestar or Balsa USA. It had been picked thru pretty good. What was left could have almost passed for bass wood. I always try to support my LHS when possible, but I think I am gonna have to go mail order this time.

Ontario is about 3 hours from my house spastic. I go to ontario like once every month for hockey so maybe i you could hook me and spastic up?

Try Balsa USA and you wont be dissapointed. As a matter of fact, I just put in an order today to finnish up my edge. I was gonna drive there, but I dont have the time. Just want to git er done. Not much good flying weather around here anymore.

Hey spastic, we're practically neighboors man. I'm in St. Catharines, about 20 minutes up the highway (QEW) from the Peace Bridge. My "supplier" is about 20 min's further (Grimsby ON). As I said he's a wholesaler/importer but does business out of his shop as Don's Balsa and Bass Wood. His prices are great and he deals in US funds with a better than normal exchange (I believe 50% off normal marked price). I'm not sure about delivery but hell if not you'll just have to come over here bring a plane with you. We'll go tear some shit up at our field .

Drop me a PM and we'll get in contact.

Scoles, were are you? Ontario's a big place. Where do you usually go when you come up here? If you are down this end (Niagara) I can hook you up. If you come across at Detroit/Windsor there is another great supplier out that direction also.

I'm in Rochester, i usually go to Missisagua, York, basically all over the place.

In other words you're cruisin' right through here. Send me a PM next next time you're headed this way.