Specialized Balsa Wood Discussion Site

For building equipment, glue etc you could go to a hobby store, but Jake has some things you can't find elsewhere. I have Jake's column and glue testers from back when he was actually making them and they work really well. For wood, most teams actually get their wood through the OM website or throug...

I figured it was time to finally do a review on here. Our OM team has been purchasing wood from Specialized Balsa since the beginning of the 2002 season. His weighed sticks are so helpful to structure building and save so much money because you can get the weights that you need at a price per stick ...

I tried that two days ago with an HD camera. I'm not sure how many frames per second it is, but all i could see was which direction it broke in. Also, I can't figure out euler's buckling formula, could anyone explain it? You must figure it out for yourself. To explain it would give too much away an...

I am an expirienced balsa builder, but have not done alot of expirimentation with extremely light balsa wood for cross supports. Are cross supports intended to connnect to the columns to stabalize them without actually taking any actual pressure? Or are they designed to take pressure when the balsa...

I saw something for towers I had never seen before. I tested a column in a hydraulic tester that just presses straight down and no twisting or moving back and forth. The column twisted about 1/2 inch in the middle in a circular motion and did not break but was shorter. The press did not move other ...

Wow, four people responded, and i still don't understand... I guess integrating delicious deserts and structures is an OM thing... I love pie... Anyone care to explain how a three part structure is "frosted" together? We are just playing around. Tommy originally respond to your 3 layers c...

Ok, I'll stop diverging. It doesn't surprise me that Jake hit this mark. This should shed some light on what's possible for next year's problem... Too bad that it's highly unlikely CCI will ever allow larger extensions for weights like this to be reached in competition.

I am a pie guy myself...I like to think of it as crust, blueberries, and more crust with filling to glue it all together.

unfortunately, those are not all the posts. Before Jake started doing backups, we lost at least a good 200 threads because the server deleted them at some point. I still remember that first thread titled "Has anyone held over 500 pounds yet?", which referred to OM Achilles Heel (so this wa...

It's an idea in theory, but still remember that you must manufacture it well in order to achieve those theoretical results. I think that it would be far more trouble than it's worth. I know that Jake spent about 3x more time on that circular one than he normally does. I've always liked the KISS prin...