Working with Balsa Sheet
 

Suggestions please.

What is the best, most effective, and/or most efficient way of carving out small channels in 1/8" balsa sheet?

I want to carve out a channel that is 1/16" deep and 1/8" wide.

Thanks for any ideas.</p>

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

A table saw or radial arm saw would probably do nicely as most blades are about 1/8" in width. A router with a 1/8" flat bottom plunge bit would also work. If you have to do it by hand I can't think of any easy way.

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

Thanks for the good ideas. I had been doing it by hand, but itwas taking a while.Gives me an excuse to buy more toys, I mean tools.

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

You can also glue a 1/16 sheet over, removing the 1/8 wide strip.[8D]

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Attachme...spx?pid=335-01

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Attachme...l.aspx?pid=231

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

Checkout this thread, and see how it did it to replicate corrugations on a the T-34C control surfaces. http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_63..._1/key_/tm.htm

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

If dimensions are not supercritical, you could build a simple sander block.

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

can some one tell me the best way to tranfer from plans to balsa wood with out traceing the plans ?? thanks bob

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

There are some print shops that do large format printing like banners, etc. that could scan your plans and then transfer (print) them on the media of your choice, i.e. balsa. But first you need to find a shop that will copy/scan the plans. A mom and pop shop is probably best, the large corpoare outlets will probably pitch a fit about copying plans without written consent from the designer and I'm not sure of the expense.

It may be more cost effective to just have a kit cutter do all the work.

Or just get a copy made of the plans and cut the copy up into templates and temporarily mount the templates on the balsa with a little spray of glue or something of the nature. I'm using this method for my 27% Skybolt and I like it.

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

thanks , we don't have a print shop here capable of doing any large plans . at present I have always traced over with frezzer paper then pressed it on to the wood with a iron this is very time comsumeing to trace everything but I don't want to cut up my plans [ plans are expensely ] bob

RE: Working with Balsa Sheet
 

rthalls,

This old thread may give you some ideas:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_22...tm.htm#2285866

Here is the acetone transfer method:

http://home.fuse.net/ryan/acetone.html

Regards!