Balsa or Bass

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Balsa Man
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by Balsa Man »

Wow, I'd contact them; I think something's wrong. I've never ordered- just drive down to pick wood up, but I know Jake works hard to turn orders around quick, and they ship Fed-X.
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by SLM »

lllazar wrote:I ordered from Specialized Balsa, some balsa sheets, about 3 weeks ago....it still hasn't arrived at my school (My coach ordered it)...how long does the shipping usually take, because im running low on the wood i currently have.
I've ordered balsa sheets and sticks from Specialized Balsa several times. I've always received a confirmation e-mail within 2 days of ordering, and have gotten the woods via USPS within a week.
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by yogoperson »

I think balsa wood is better. It's lighter and stronger if you use it correctly, and if you know how to put together structures that don't use a lot of glue yet efficient. I am horrible at it, though. My friends are geniuses at this.
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by austinfhs »

I don't have much experience with this event, but I think that a combination is the best. Maybe using bass (along the grain) for the serious stress points, and then using balsa as supports against twisting and distributing weight? I tried breaking some quarter inch bass and it had incredible strength - then again that was quarter inch, and way larger than you'll be using less wood then that.
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by Vizard007 »

austinfhs wrote:I don't have much experience with this event, but I think that a combination is the best. Maybe using bass (along the grain) for the serious stress points, and then using balsa as supports against twisting and distributing weight? I tried breaking some quarter inch bass and it had incredible strength - then again that was quarter inch, and way larger than you'll be using less wood then that.
What he says is kind of correct? The truth is, Balsa is superior in every way IFF the wood is carefully selected. a 5G piece of balsa wood isn't necessarily stronger than a 1G strip of the same size and thickness (Though there is a correlation between mass and strength). The hard part is just taking the time to get the wood. Another issue is that if a 1 meter piece of balsa wood was cut in half, the two opposite ends could have completely different masses and strength. So, IMO I would go with what austinfhs has posted above, or at least go all bass. Because if a tower breaks it will be harder to distinguish why it broke with balsa due to so many different variable. At least it will be harder relative to using bass wood. I'm going to try to get my team to go ALL bass then towards a hybrid of bass and balsa, and then pure balsa. But, the team that beats our school every year goes pure bass, and they've been going to nats for like, 25 years i believe? Plus, with the new efficiency formula, carrying more weight is important, so that's another pro for bass (in the beginning at least).
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by yogoperson »

In my opinion, I'd stick to one type of wood. Mixing might earn you serious points and cost you even more.
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by iYOA »

Vizard007 wrote: Because if a tower breaks it will be harder to distinguish why it broke with balsa due to so many different variable.
i think that with a little experience, a little bit of attention to details such as the mass of the balsa sticks used and a slow motion video, it is pretty easy to distinguish why a balsa tower broke.

Consistency with balsa is also not tough once you build lots of towers. I think that after 15 towers, you should be fairly consistent.
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by Vizard007 »

iYOA wrote:
Vizard007 wrote: Because if a tower breaks it will be harder to distinguish why it broke with balsa due to so many different variable.
i think that with a little experience, a little bit of attention to details such as the mass of the balsa sticks used and a slow motion video, it is pretty easy to distinguish why a balsa tower broke.

Consistency with balsa is also not tough once you build lots of towers. I think that after 15 towers, you should be fairly consistent.
Yea, that sounds about right. Maybe a little low? But, I prefer not to use Balsa unless I personally hand pick every single piece and check the grain and weight and everything.
It's so easy, even a Badger could do it.
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by iYOA »

Vizard007 wrote: Yea, that sounds about right. Maybe a little low? But, I prefer not to use Balsa unless I personally hand pick every single piece and check the grain and weight and everything.
yep, what we do is mainly check the mass of each stick but now we can also start testing stiffness. I suppose the best way to improve consistency is to make lots of mistake, have many premature failures and learn from them. if your tower breaks because it is crooked or because the top part is a fraction of a mm too wide (causing the loading block to slip right through under higher loads), and you eliminate those errors in future towers, it will significantly improve consistency and hopefully you will notice noticeable improvements in efficiency( and it feels sooo good!).

I also cannot stress the importance of building constantly enough. we built about 2-3 towers a week for 1.5 months and we improved so much. we went from getting a 5 to a 17.6.
Last edited by iYOA on December 9th, 2010, 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Balsa or Bass

Post by bmbw123 »

Wow, 2-3 towers a week. I wish I was as dedicated as you haha :) . What I'm wondering is what wood densities you're using, because on the site I previously bought balsa wood from, the nice, light balsa wood that would be great for this event are all from $0.55 to about $1, and using 2-3 towers worth of wood per week seems like quite a bit of wood.
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