How To Bend Balsa Wood Sheets

The available methods of getting balsa to bend more can be broken down into the following sections.

How to bend balsa wood sheets.

The lam will be the stronger of the two due to the small. These radii increase if you bend the sheet along the grain of the wood instead of across it because splinters are more likely to form when bending along the grain. Food steamers are ideal and can be a good investment if you bend wood regularly. I used the windex method.

Thats a tight radius to bend sheet. Basswood is especially easy to bend so a steamer is ideal. Another option is to soak the wood in water and ammonia for 24 hours. Special methods for bending balsa wood may not be necessary if the curve is a gentle one and the radius is large.

To form sheet balsa first i have the sheet to near net size. Economy it s cheaper to make a wingtip out of a strip of balsa than to use up a much larger sheet of balsa and having to discard the bulk of it. What i ended up doing is makeing formes in the shape that i needed to bend the balsa in. How to bend balsa.

How to bend balsa wood. Balsa wood is often the wood of choice when a woodworking project involves curves that require the wood to be bent. Now wet outside face and it may not crack when reduced to 1 4 in there is minimal weight gain with a laminated 1 8 piece versus solid 1 8. Quite frequently in.

Soak balsa in water and tape around a round former of maybe 2 5 inch diameter. The wood may conform easily. I use a small bowl with a cup of water or so and a tablespoon of ammonia. Anything can be the former.

I then soaked the balsa sheets with windex then i clamped the peices to the form. I then have a small sponge to throughly wet one side of the sheet. Stage 1 getting the wood flexible. Find a jar can or a mailing tube to form the sheet around.

I would use 2 laminations of 16th. You can get a bend radius of as little as two feet by bending 1 4 inch plywood whereas the minimum bend radius for 3 4 inch plywood is 12 feet. Let balsa dry before removing from former. Just finished bending the balsa.