I once had a club member that liked to just watch his plane float around, it was a glider, I had to watch it once for him and thought it was more fun to watch the Hawks fly around.
Because I'm a plans builder I order my wood in bulk for wood suppliers like National Balsa. To get the blocks I need I have often had to buy from other places but I like National. The blocks come in different sizes but I like them in 4X4X36 inch. I have posted photos several times of our wood working club but I either use a big recut saw, ZONA I think or I use the band saw with a fine tooth blade. The trick is to make sure the blade, fence and table are all squared. For something like 1/16 sheeting I cut it over size then run it through the over head micro sander to get all the sheets evenly sanded to 1/16.
Sticks are easy, if I want 3/8X 1/4 I can rip a sheet to either size then set the saw to the next size and rip it into the stick size.
All my kit parts are gang cut. This Birdi has a tapered wing so it needs two wing ribs each of different sizes, because I'm cutting two kits I need 4 of each. I use a spray mount glue and just glue 4 sheets of wood together then glue the templates on top then cut the ribs out proud then sand to final size. I use a heat gun to warm them up and loosen the glue so I can separate the ribs.
A buddy gave me a big box of balsa blocks that were 2x8X18 that were used as packaging for a tool sent to his wood working club and I have used that in my last two builds. Before that I had several of the store bought long blocks but I ran out of that.
The Bridi Dirty Birdi will be my summer build. I do most my building when it's hot. The Vegas area heats up by about 10 or 11am so it's either hanging around the pool or being in my shop building. Sometimes I get back from the pool and just head right into the shop. Our flying starts at sunrise and we are packed up and gone about 10 or 11. Often we go to a nice casino and as a group have brunch. During the week all the casinos have those cheap meal specials. We fly all year round, only the wind grounds us. And we aren't talking the little weenie winds like most places. It can start out calm as can be in the morning and like magic come up, right after I take off and go from 30mph to 60mph in the blink of an eye. The last three weeks the wind has been up, not a steady high wind but about 30mph then gusts will come up that move my BBQ and patio furniture around so I haven't been flying.
The friend I'm cutting the other kit for is a couple hours away in Calif. and couldn't change the oil in his truck yesterday because the wind is so strong the oil coming out of the pan gets blown across his driveway. That's being grounded by the wind. You can look in my gallery at a few of the planes I have built, this little Up-Roar is either in a build thread or Ricks Up-Roar thread? I don't recall if I did it as a thread or in his? The other photo is the kits I'm still cutting but that is two kits being done with the parts and templates still glued on.The Roar kit is still cut and sold through Tower but mine came in under 3.5 pounds fully loaded just by wood selection. It will float around but really gets with the program when I want it to.