How do you store your balsa?

[Adrian Hazeldine]

So how do people store their balsa stash? I find it impossible to store balsa strip without it twisting/ bending etc despite it being in a dry workshop at a constant 16-17 degrees.  

[Dad_flyer]

At the point where I bought a stash of balsa, I also had some shelves and things from Ikea. This gave me some wide boxes, more than 36" long and a couple of inches deep, and also sheets of that mega-cardboard (2 layers of paper with a honeycomb if vertical paper between). A layer of 1/2" maga-cardboard at the bottom to stiffen the box and dividers to make three 4"wide portions for soft, med, hard. The other balsa stash is in the box that it came in from SLEC. They are stored in the house, and I try to keep them horizontal on something flat.

I have mostly sheets and very little strip. That is all bound together in a bundle in the box, again just as it arrives from SLEC.

Edited April 1, 2021 by Dad_flyer

[Phil McCavity]

I don't tend to store any great amount of strip, I prefer to cut it from sheet stored on edge when I need it.

Edited April 1, 2021 by Phil McCavity

[kc]

Strip should be rubber banded or taped together with masking tape to keep them straight

[Nick Somerville]

I built 36”+ wide drawers under my work benches. This is the longer bench which isn’t tidy anymore! Scrap balsa, piano wire, aluminium sheet etc in one, laser cut parts for current build in another and balsa sheet and strip in the drawer below the other bench. It amazes me that you can buy a pair of very sturdy 450mm ball raced drawer runners from Screwfix for £6. So why do retracts cost so much?

[Don Fry]

If you cost, addicted to this game of blood, the cost of things like strip wood, a small but good, rigid saw, band or circular, becomes cheap. I favor a bandsaw, but for me it also slices home made bread, cuts up frozen legs of lamb, etc, etc.

Then you buy sheet wood only, stored in a big kit box. Some of the content is old. It doesn’t deteriorate, stored carefully. The order for wood, skews towards heavier bits of thick wood, but the likes of SLEC understand a request for a mixed batch of wood.

A further misers advantage, the bits of wood that get into the scrap box, also get sliced up for small bits of strips as needed. The tiny remnants light the fire. Once a year, first fire of of the year. 

[leccyflyer]

At the moment I store sheet balsa on the shelves under my butcher's block free standing building bench. When I get a round tuit I intend to make a pigeonhole style set of separators to let me stack the balsa more efficiently.

Strip balsa, hardwood, dowels, cf rod and tube, plastic and ,metal tubes and ;piano wire is stored stood on end in a map rack. That is not ideal for balsa strip, because it bends, but like others in the thread I prefer to cut strip for a job, using a balsa stripper, so don;t carry a large stack of strip. I have a set of fish-boxes, about A3 in size that holds sorted scrap of balsa sheet, block, strip, liteply, ply, hardwoods, plastic sheet and depron. There's usually a big enough piece of those materials in the scrap boxes to do small repairs and other jobs.

Edited April 1, 2021 by leccyflyer
added piccies

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

I stick it together and cover it with film.

[i12fly]

Strip is held together with about 4 rubber bands, sheet is held similarly, and all placed in an old ARTF kit box vertically. It is kept in the spare bedroom.

Some of the thicker sheets are 30+ years old (inherited from my father) and was kept in an outside shed for 10 years. The rest is 2 to 15 years old. Its all OK, about 50 sheets + ~30 strips. Never happy with cutting my own strip wood, the cutter ran off line, wasn't quite square or after cutting it from a straight edged sheet found it to be bowed after cutting. So I always buy it, not worth the hassle of cutting for me but I appreciate other people cut it successfully.

[Adrian Hazeldine]

thanks for all the feedback - at present I've got mine on a bench top and sheet is no problem piled up but with different thicknesses of strip it's tending to spread out.

I can see the logic in only cutting strip when it's needed - I have a bandsaw so will give that a try sometime...

Those underslung drawers are a great idea Nick - it strike me they would be good for all sorts of things! Have you put any stiffeners along the length to stop the ply base or whatever from bending?

[Nigel R]

All stored in a 3ft box made from some thin ply from b&q.

 

When leccyflyer has finished with the round tuit i am going to make a matching 4 ft box. 

 

[Nick Somerville]

2 hours ago, Adrian Hazeldine said:

Those underslung drawers are a great idea Nick - it strike me they would be good for all sorts of things! Have you put any stiffeners along the length to stop the ply base or whatever from bending?

Not needed if the cheap thin ply base has the stiffer grain orientation front to back. Balsa is so light in any case.

[Don Fry]

If you are cutting strip on a bandsaw, a good fence, and a fine blade are necessities.

[Ace]

I made mine from MDF, glued and screwed. Partition shelves one one side with one vertical for sheet on the other using post-it notes between the different thicknesses.

[Mike T]

17 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

 

 

Blimey - look at all that space!  You obviously aren't trying hard enough! ?

I stack at the back of one of my wall benches - thinnest sheet at the bottom.  Strip, I buy, as I've never got consistent cuts with a DIY stripper.

 

 

[kc]

Years ago one of the magazines showed a rack made from cardboard box taped up in rather similar style to Ace's one but rather smaller for less sheets.  Same end loading idea to take up less space and hung from roof.  You could consider putting on castors or using the stand from an old TV if it has castors.   Then you can push it out of the way when not in use.

A handy way of storing piano wire is to get a length of PVC pipe from a plumbers merchants - i think overflow pipe is 19mmID/ 22mm/OD  and can have a plastic'cork' inserted either end.   Stores the wire and cannot poke youe eye out.   A 'Terry' clip can fasten it to a wall yet be removeable to tip the wire out.

[David Ashby - Moderator]

18 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

At the moment I store sheet balsa on the shelves under my butcher's block free standing building bench. When I get a round tuit I intend to make a pigeonhole style set of separators to let me stack the balsa more efficiently.

Strip balsa, hardwood, dowels, cf rod and tube, plastic and ,metal tubes and ;piano wire is stored stood on end in a map rack. That is not ideal for balsa strip, because it bends, but like others in the thread I prefer to cut strip for a job, using a balsa stripper, so don;t carry a large stack of strip. I have a set of fish-boxes, about A3 in size that holds sorted scrap of balsa sheet, block, strip, liteply, ply, hardwoods, plastic sheet and depron. There's usually a big enough piece of those materials in the scrap boxes to do small repairs and other jobs.

 

That's an impressive facility you have there Leccy. 

 

 

[leccyflyer]

Thanks David -it's been a long held dream to have a decent workshop, having spent a long time working away from home, coming home for the weekends and with the models usually occupying one room, but with not a lot of room to work. The outbuilding conversion took quite a lot of planning, but I've borrowed lots of ideas from magazine and other modeller's workshops and sheds. I wanted to have a couple of 360 degree access benches, as well as my trusty main bench which was made from a draughting machine. It was about 80% finished when the first lockdown started and the second fix electrics and finishing couldn't be completed for months. I decided that I needed a lot of storage for models and kits outside of the workshop, then had the idea of putting a mezzanine floor in the barn to house the kit mountain.

 

The finishing touches were adding wall rack for holding my fleet of funfighter sized models ready to grab and go. I did put some pictures in my gallery in the old forum, but those photos are all mixed in now. Here's a piccy of the model storage racks -I've added another bay since then and plan to add a couple more in the near future.

[J D 8]

Nothing as fancy as other here. Old model box's flat under the bed. Balsa keep well anyway.

[Phil McCavity]

Waste and soil pipe in various diameters is useful for storage and it's cheap, that's how I keep my wire and rods, triangle and trailing edge stock and the odd few lengths of strip I do have, I also use the cardboard tubes left over from wrapping paper and postage tubes.

[Adrian Hazeldine]

14 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

Thanks David -it's been a long held dream to have a decent workshop, having spent a long time working away from home, coming home for the weekends and with the models usually occupying one room, but with not a lot of room to work. The outbuilding conversion took quite a lot of planning, but I've borrowed lots of ideas from magazine and other modeller's workshops and sheds. I wanted to have a couple of 360 degree access benches, as well as my trusty main bench which was made from a draughting machine. It was about 80% finished when the first lockdown started and the second fix electrics and finishing couldn't be completed for months. I decided that I needed a lot of storage for models and kits outside of the workshop, then had the idea of putting a mezzanine floor in the barn to house the kit mountain.

 

The finishing touches were adding wall rack for holding my fleet of funfighter sized models ready to grab and go. I did put some pictures in my gallery in the old forum, but those photos are all mixed in now. Here's a piccy of the model storage racks -I've added another bay since then and plan to add a couple more in the near future.

That's a great storage facility and a very nice collection of warbirds too!

[Adrian Hazeldine]

22 hours ago, Ace said:

I made mine from MDF, glued and screwed. Partition shelves one one side with one vertical for sheet on the other using post-it notes between the different thicknesses.

Ace - there's more balsa there than in many model shops! ?

[Ace]

AH - In preparation for retirement which commenced 18mths ago. Similar ARFT/Kit pile ?

 

[leccyflyer]

Good plan Ace - and I think your balsa storage rack is ace too. ?

 

[Adrian Hazeldine]

Ace - you sound like a man on a mission! ?