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Thread: Sources for wood?

  1. #11
    DaleB's Avatar
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    No, it's shorter, has orange and white stripes and is found perennially along and in the middle of streets and highways across the state.
    Measure twice, cut once...
    scratch head, shrug, shim to fit.

    Flying an RV-12. I am building a Fisher Celebrity, slowly.

  2. #12

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    Another source is abandon projects. I picked up my spars from an abandon project and know of a second project that has spars. I have a box of 1/4" x 48" capstrip that I won't be using. It came with the spars but I already had the rib material.

    I bought my capstrip from ACS and am pretty happy with the quality. I don't remember the time it took to ship, but then I did some proper project planning.

  3. #13
    DaleB's Avatar
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    I've added "Order wood at least 60 days before it's needed" to my list of lessons learned on this project. It looks like my order is finally on its way... three and a half weeks after I placed it, 15 days past the lead time I was told to expect when I placed the order, and 4 days after I was last week it was "shipping today". But who's counting?

    This was just a capstrip order, nothing excessively long, or unusual.

    On related topic... For some pieces, I'm thinking it might be better to order larger planks and rip them down to size. The less cutting ACS has to do, the better my chances are of not sitting here tapping my foot waiting on it. I'm also thinking in case I find some decent quality white pine or Douglas fir locally, where that is called out for certain pieces, it would be good to be able to resaw some common lumber yard stock down to size. Would it be reasonable to try to do this with a decent quality but not super-expensive band saw? I'm thinking an older Delta, or a new Jet or Shop Fox 14" with a good Timber Wolf blade on it. Something in the $750-ish price range new. It's obvious that my little cheap 10" bench top saw is absolutely not up to a task like that, although it's been great to have for small jobs. I've seen Youtube videos of guys slicing boards down to smaller sizes, but of course its going to look easy when a pro with really good equipment and a lot of experience does it. I'm willing to buy a nice big band saw if it's going to allow me to do the job, but not if it's just going to be a good way to ruin expensive wood.
    Measure twice, cut once...
    scratch head, shrug, shim to fit.

    Flying an RV-12. I am building a Fisher Celebrity, slowly.

  4. #14
    Sam Buchanan's Avatar
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    I ripped the wood (including rib capstrips) for a plans-built MiniMax with an inexpensive bench-top table saw. The key to making these saws work is using a good blade. A couple of roller stands are very useful and make handling long boards much easier.
    Sam Buchanan
    The RV Journal RV-6 build log
    Fokker D.VII semi-replica build log

  5. #15
    DaleB's Avatar
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    Yeah... I suppose I could get a good blade custom made for this one, but it takes an oddball small size. The blades I have found are not great quality. I can't see spending money on a custom welded blade to see if my Harbor Freight band saw can be made good enough to (slowly) rip very expensive wood with acceptable results. I doubt I'd feel badly about having a good quality 14" saw, especially since I can see some more upcoming non-aviation projects that I'd use it for. After watching a video I found about setting up and tuning a larger bandsaw, I did the same to mine. It cuts much, much better and straighter than it did before, but still not great. We'll see how I feel after getting some ribs done, and checking a couple more local places to see if there any acceptable Douglas fir or other materials available.

    I do have one of those roller stands -- they sure do come in handy.
    Measure twice, cut once...
    scratch head, shrug, shim to fit.

    Flying an RV-12. I am building a Fisher Celebrity, slowly.

  6. #16
    Sam Buchanan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DaleB View Post
    Yeah... I suppose I could get a good blade custom made for this one, but it takes an oddball small size. The blades I have found are not great quality. I can't see spending money on a custom welded blade to see if my Harbor Freight band saw can be made good enough to (slowly) rip very expensive wood with acceptable results.
    Dale...I used a table saw. A band saw would indeed be a slow go......

    A hollow-ground circular carbide blade is commonly available at big box stores at a reasonable price and will last long enough to cut the lumber for two or three airplanes. My saw is a cheap Delta that I've had in the shop for 25 years. It also cut all the cedar strips for two canoes and a kayak.
    Last edited by Sam Buchanan; 02-28-2017 at 06:50 PM.
    Sam Buchanan
    The RV Journal RV-6 build log
    Fokker D.VII semi-replica build log

  7. #17

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    Scratch Building

    Start making fittings; there's no need to sit and wait - always lots of things to do and make!

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