basswood ?
03-02-2010, 03:20 PM
#2
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RE: basswood ?
Spruce is stronger , but bass wood is also pretty strong depending on the application you can sometimes substitute using bass wood without a problem ,
what are you using it for ?
what are you using it for ?
03-02-2010, 03:20 PM
#3
Senior Member
RE: basswood ?
According to my very knowledgeable LHS proprietor
Kinds of stick wood ...
walnut & mahogany - brittle and may well crack under the stresses of flight
basswood and pine - both will flex without snapping - basswood is more evenly grained, easy to carve and consistent throughout entire piece of wood while pine is grainy and inconsistent in strength along the length of wood.
If by spruce you mean pine then pick basswood. If not, my 30 year experienced builder and supplier of wood doesn't stock it and couldn't give an opinion.
Kinds of stick wood ...
walnut & mahogany - brittle and may well crack under the stresses of flight
basswood and pine - both will flex without snapping - basswood is more evenly grained, easy to carve and consistent throughout entire piece of wood while pine is grainy and inconsistent in strength along the length of wood.
If by spruce you mean pine then pick basswood. If not, my 30 year experienced builder and supplier of wood doesn't stock it and couldn't give an opinion.
03-02-2010, 10:42 PM
#6
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RE: basswood ?
Basswood and spruce can be used interchangeably for most of our plane building applications. basswood has an ultimate strength about 92% of spruce. It has a higher bending strength but is more brittle. In other words, if you took a piece of basswood and a piece of spruce, of the same dimensions, and slowly bent them, the spruce would break first. A sudden shock load with a bending force would probably break the basswood first (such as a wing striking an obstacle in flight. The difference might be negligible). Compression strength of spruce is better than basswood parallel to the grain. Weight of the two is very similar.
Basswood has a finer, more even grain and can be carved more easily. Lastly, basswood is classified a hardwood, spruce is a softwood, but that has more to do with leaf-shedding than actual hardness of the wood.
Basswood has a finer, more even grain and can be carved more easily. Lastly, basswood is classified a hardwood, spruce is a softwood, but that has more to do with leaf-shedding than actual hardness of the wood.
