Specialized Balsa Wood Discussion Site

Jake, After composing a response I went to submit it and got this back: Mistake! There was an attempt of an automatic insert of the message in a forum. Your message is sent to hell. Try still times who knows - can it will turn out? Still probably, that you too long wrote the message - then pass to p...

I know of many in OM that swear by Gorilla glue, and an equal number that swear at it. My comments are chiefly around workability of the glues you're using. Gorilla glue is a very good glue for bonding wood as it has perhaps the best penetration into wood pores of all the glues you are considering. ...

I work at a security conscious supplier to the Defense industry and take care to log out after every discussion session, and I login fresh every time. I do not have the automatically log me in option ticked, and I do not have my browser settings "remember" my login. I do, however, use the ...

That's good, NYOmer11. We,too, were concerned about drying the wood our first year, and maintaining a stable relative moisture content. That was the year World Competition was held at the University of Maryland, an area that is notorious for high humidity. We did our research into drying methods and...

There are plenty of resources available with information on the impact drying has on the strength characteristics of wood. Far be it from me to recommend how to dry your balsa wood, and how to maintain its relative moisture content once dried. But, consider the type of information you're asking abou...

David,

It isn't just that the person receiving outside assistance (OA) is subject to penalties, under OM rules the person (or team) guilty of passing on that OA is also subject to penalties. Good luck to your daughter, Kat, on what sounds suspiciously like a basic OM structure problem.

More specifically, laminating is a type of joint that generally refers to gluing two or more pieces of balsa together along their length. This is as opposed to simply gluing two pieces together where they intersect, as in a joint between a piece of cross bracing and a vertical weight bearing portion...

You're right about taking shrinkage into consideration last year with the constant 8" height requirement. Based on ther previous experience, the kids intentionally made the structure taller than usual to make sure it didn't dip below 8" before failure. Was only a 1/8" increase, but ev...

Yes, We've seen it before during It's A Snap. The kids' structure that year consisted of three, square, four-legged, outer structure stacking "rings" made of three laminated vertical sticks glued as an "L" at each corner, with a fourth full height inner structure made of a single...

I culled the bad URLs and updated those I could still find:

Structure Resources
Clark in MI, May 2001
Updated 2005

Desch, H. E. (1968), Timber, Its structure & properties, St Martin's Press, New York.
Chapter 7, The moisture in wood, Chapter 8, The density of wood, and Chapter 9, The strength properties of wood.

Interesting facts about balsa wood, SIG brochure.
Good general purpose guide to balsa wood. Get it mail order from SIG.

Allen, B., Structure TM Guide, www.dipins.org/resources/structure/structure.htm.
Helpful structure design and assembly tips. Make sure to download related article called Balsawood Structure Design, even if it is half finished and lacking illustrations.

HairyLunch's Creative Problem Solving Page, www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Campus/66 ... cture1.htm.
More general purpose info about balsa structures.

Salvadori, M (1980), Why buildings stand up, W. W. Norton & Company, New York.
Mario Salvadori has written many books, some geared specifically for children. This one is a little more technical, but has great discussions in chapter 5, Beams and Columns, about column design and how to maximize strength through design.

Salvadori, M (1980), The art of construction, Chicago Review Press, Chicago.
One of Mario's kid oriented books. Useful for kid level discussion of beam design.

Water-Towers.com, www.water-towers.com/wtrsbruce1.htm.
Pictures and plans for 2 & 3 story timber water towers.

Billington, D. P. (1980's ?), The tower and the bridge, Basic Books Inc., New York.
Good pictures of real structures. The John Hancock Center external truss system is an excellent example of a diagonally cross braced structure.

Panshin, A. J., De Zeeuw, C., and Brown, H. P. (1950's ?), Textbook of wood technology, Volume 1 - Structure, identification, uses, and properties of the commercial woods of the United States, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.
Like Desch's book, Timber, Its structure & properties, an excellent discussion of wood properties. Particularly Chapter 6, The physical nature of wood, pages 238-239, Figure in wood (the source of SIG's illustration!), and pages 276-277, compression failure


There are also a lot of web based discussion pages. Among these are:

"Balsa Wood Road Map", http://www.zimsweb.com/balsa/

"Balsa Wood Structure Site Discussion", http://www.specializedbalsa.com/forum/

“Balsa Wood Structure Informationâ€￾, http://www.zimsweb.com/balsa/information/balsainfo.htm

"Brantacan", http://www.brantacan.co.uk/

"East Coast Model Center", http://www.greathobbies.com/

"Links", http://www.interchg.ubc.ca/jatwater/links.html

"Building Supply, wood species library", http://www.cyberyard.com/woodlibrary/

"SIG Manufacturing", http://www.sigmfg.com/

"Virgina OM", http://www.vaodyssey.org/

"Official OM Site", http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/whatis.asp

"West Point Engineering Design Site", http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/

“Balsa Structure Tipsâ€￾, http://php.indiana.edu/~iuom/structure.html

I just checked, and Jake's old web page of Balsa Structure Information is still active! You can access it here:

http://www.zimsweb.com/balsa/information/balsainfo.htm

This list has not been updated since 2001 when it was first compiled. I make no claims as to the availability of the various internet URLs. However, all this material was freely available from public libraries and the internet when compiled, and represents only a fraction of the type of information ...

Any way of adding the option of displaying newest on top instead of oldest on top to the Profile of the users? I like to be able to see the newest mail at the top without having to scroll down. Although I can select this as a feature and then apply it, it would be nice to save it as a preference (pa...

Never mind, I discovered the Avatar setting in my Profile. Let's here it for blues guitarists!

And another thing, I can see where my signature block is getting applied at the bottom of my messages, but how do you embed the graphics in the column to the left of your message as Jake has done with his "broken tower" and somebody else has done with their "tie dyed" graphic?