Spruce

[Caveat Empty Headed.]

I've located a source of spruce in British Columbia that appears to be very
good. http://www.timberwright.ca/aircraft.html
anyone dealt with them?

This is for Spars, BTW.

The spruce they supply is uncertified, air -dried and unfinished, but
exceeds the criteria for certification.
They can't certify it as they don't have the equipment,but it is for a
homebuilt. The only thing I'm concerned about is the air dried part of
this. I can get it kiln dried near me, though. Anyone know if this is good
practice? Anything I should be looking out for here?
BTW, their price is half of what ACS is looking for the same dimensions.

[Morgans]

"Caveat Empty Headed." > wrote
>
> The spruce they supply is uncertified, air -dried and unfinished, but
> exceeds the criteria for certification.
> They can't certify it as they don't have the equipment,but it is for a
> homebuilt. The only thing I'm concerned about is the air dried part of
> this.

The air drying portion is not a concern, if it has been done correctly, and
it has been drying long enough. Air drying is slower, more stable and
consistent.

Ask that he do a moisture check, for any piece you select. You need to
slice off a piece of the stock you are planning to buy, at least one and a
half times the length, of the largest dimension (thickness or width) and
check in the middle of where the cut was made. If he doesn't have a meter,
or won't do this, walk away. checking on the outside is close to
meaningless for air dried. I don't recall what the % is supposed to be, or
where to find that information, but I would guess 8 to 10 percent.

Also, look very carefully for compression fractures. They are hard to spot.
Good luck.
--
Jim in NC

[[email protected]]

Morgans wrote:
> I don't recall what the % is supposed to be, or
> where to find that information, but I would guess 8 to 10 percent.
-------------------------------------------------------

15% for airplanes. Boat work (spars & masts) might go as low as 8% but
10 to 12 is more the norm.

Basic rule for Sitka spruce -- the farther you get from the water, the
poorer the spars (boat OR plane).

It's probably worth a ferry ride to see what they've got. Since 1997
or thereabouts someone raped the last stand of old-growth up on the
north end of the island and it had some really good trees.

If the grain is true it generally dries true, so long as it's properly
supported and turned every now & then. No problem to stack a few
sticks in the rafters for a couple of years. It doesn't check like DF.

Even a big airplane, you're only looking at about 100 bf, finished.
Buy it rough (ie, full size), do your own sawing, even with 100%
wastage (ie, kerf = finished) you're only looking at 15 to 20 sticks of
1x6x16'.

Nice stuff to work with.

-R.S.Hoover

[Highflyer]

"Caveat Empty Headed." > wrote in message
...
> I've located a source of spruce in British Columbia that appears to be
> very
> good. http://www.timberwright.ca/aircraft.html
> anyone dealt with them?
>
> This is for Spars, BTW.
>
> The spruce they supply is uncertified, air -dried and unfinished, but
> exceeds the criteria for certification.
> They can't certify it as they don't have the equipment,but it is for a
> homebuilt. The only thing I'm concerned about is the air dried part of
> this. I can get it kiln dried near me, though. Anyone know if this is good
> practice? Anything I should be looking out for here?
> BTW, their price is half of what ACS is looking for the same dimensions.

"certified aircraft spruce" is rather a misleading term anyway. Who
"certified" it? The FAA certainly didn't, they are not in that business and
do not certify wood.

There is a set of guidelines for selecting wood that meets the quality
standards for aircraft use that was published back in the thirties. I have
it around somewhere but it is the middle of the night and I don't want to go
looking for it. I believe it is ANC18 or some such. You can obtain a copy
from the EAA library. They will photocopy it and send it to you for a very
reasonable copy charge.

Any "certification" of aircraft wood is done by whoever selected the pieces
and he is "certifying" that they met those standards. They cover things
like grain lines per inch and degree of slope of the grain as well as
moisture content. The flaw in wood that is hardest to see is probably a
compression failure. This happens when the log or board was bumped or
shocked sufficiently to overload a line of cells in the wood causing them to
rupture. There is not necessarily a visible dimensional change. They
usually show up as a shiny line one or two cells wide after the wood is
planed. The piece of wood containing that line of ruptured cells will fail
WAY easier than the undamaged wood and will likely break in what we call a
"brash" break. It will just break along that line with no splintering and
will break very suddenly.

I once had an undiscovered compression failure in a wood spar on a
Taylorcraft I was flying. I did a steep turn and the airplane suddenly
rolled out of the turn. The rear spar broke completely off right at the
rear spar fitting where it connected to the fuselage. I looked out the
window at that wing and the trailing edge was up about a foot and flapping!
The only thing keeping the wing on the airplane was the two wing struts and
the forward wing spar connection. If it had been a cantilever wing with a
single spar I would have watched one wing go fluttering away! There was no
visible damage on the outside of the wing at both an extensive annual
inspection and an extensive preflight inspection. No wrinkles in the
fabric. No curves or kinks in the trailing edge. The actual physical
deformation was only a few thousandths of an inch. The wing broke at less
than two G's.

The recent AD on Champion aircraft is an inspection for compression failures
in the wing spar caused by minor damage near the wing tip. That was what
caused the compression failure on the Taylorcraft that was responsible for
my having to have the seat cushion surgically removed from my rear end! It
gets you attention when a wing spar breaks suddenly.

I so have a few samples of spruce spar stock with compression failures in
them that have been cut out of otherwise good material. I will probably
have them around my hangar during the 2005 rec.aviation flyin at
Pinckneyville on May 20, 21, and 22. If anyone is coming to the flyin, drop
Mary an email at so she can plan for the groceries for the
meals.

Highflyer
Highflight Aviation Services
Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )

[COLIN LAMB]

According to expert testimony in one case regarding a failed wing spar in a
Citrabia, a compression failure can occur when the tree is felled.

I have seen some websites concerning the AD note on the Champion aircraft
which have micro-photographs of what a compression failure looks like. It
is very interesting and worthwhile to check out.

If the compression failure possibiity bothers you too much, you can go to
the aluminum spar failure sites and look at fatigue failures in aluminun.
They are much easier to spot. There should also be sites for fiberglass
spar failures, too. I expect that almost anything used as a spar has failed
from time to time.

The spar in my present aircraft is wood.

Colin

[[email protected]]

COLIN LAMB wrote:
> According to expert testimony in one case regarding a failed wing
spar in a
> Citrabia, a compression failure can occur when the tree is felled.
>
> I have seen some websites concerning the AD note on the Champion
aircraft
> which have micro-photographs of what a compression failure looks
like. It
> is very interesting and worthwhile to check out.
>
------------------------------------------------------------

Roger that. The compression fracture often occurs in the rebound when
the tree hits the ground.

For a big tree of potentially prime spruce the feller may elect to top
it first, a task not for the faint of heart. A bed of second-growth is
then prepared, into which the tree is felled. No hard strike on the
ground and no rebound. They will ten cut away the lower twenty feet or
so, which will often be used for sounding boards and the like, and be
left with a clean stick up to 80 feet long.

But rather than becoming masts, spars or aircraft wood, the odds are
the tree will end up as fast-food packaging in Japan, Taiwan or Korea.
(Sitka spruce imparts no taste to food.)

If the tree was felled in the Tongas National Forest the lumber company
will pay the American tax-payer approximately $1.70... for the entire
tree. Clearly, we Americans have the best government money can buy :-)

-R.S.Hoover

[COLIN LAMB]

The Pacific Northwest used to have large stands of Sitka Spruce trees.
Alas, they were mostly cut down for airplanes - World War I airplanes to be
exact. Processing plants were set up on the Columbia River right next to
Fort Vancouver, so the military could assist in running production full
tilt.

Colin

[[email protected]]

COLIN LAMB wrote:
> The Pacific Northwest used to have large stands of Sitka Spruce
trees.
> Alas, they were mostly cut down for airplanes - World War I airplanes
to be
> exact.

-------------------------------------------------------

I guess they missed a few trees here & there. According to an FPL
report from the 1930's there was about 45 BILLION board feet of
havestable Sitka spruce in American forests and about three times that
amount in Canada.

But not in large stands. You'll occasionally see a pocket of nothing
but Sitka spruce but it normally grows in mixed stands, usually with
Western Hemlock. That's because of a little bug called the Spruce
Weevil. In the wild, growing in mixed stands, the spruce weevil isn't
much of a problem but it's deadly to single-specie stands of Sitka
spruce, as people have discovered from single-specie 're-forestation'
projects. Major thigh-slapper to foresters. Millions of dollars
wasted to produce square miles of Spruce Weevil fodder. [The weevil
attacks the new growth; you end up with a stunted, ground-hugging shrub
-- a 'forest' less than chest high.) USDA still has a lot to learn
from Mother Nature :-) (Today, the largest stands of Sitka spruce are
probably in Europe.)

The reality of Sitka spruce is that only 6% to 8% of an A-class log is
liable to meet aircraft-quality specs. Even then, the stick has to be
quarter-sawn before it can be accurately graded which means the sawyer
is liable to lose money on the deal unless he knows he's got a market
for it.

Fortunately, that reality works both ways. Since the major expense is
in the wastage and labor of resawing, if you can find a nice balk of
Sitka spruce and do the cutting, curing and grading yourself, you can
save over 90% compared to store-bought 'certified' spruce. (During the
height of the Depression, in order to save on freight and reduce
wasteage, Bill Piper Sr. drove to Oregon and hauled hand-selected loads
of spar-stock back to Pennsylvania on a rented trailer.)

Some lumber companies here in California still run their own barges
down from the PNW (Dixieline is one) and are willing to throw a log or
two on the load and even mill it to your spec. Assuming your pockets
are deep enough :-)

On the other hand, Western Hemlock is an acceptable substitute for
Sitka spruce and is about 8x more plentiful, plus the yield of
'aircraft-quality' timber is 10% to 12% for the same size log.

-R.S.Hoover

[Caveat Empty Headed]

groups.com:

>
> COLIN LAMB wrote:
>> The Pacific Northwest used to have large stands of Sitka Spruce
> trees.
>> Alas, they were mostly cut down for airplanes - World War I airplanes
> to be
>> exact.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> I guess they missed a few trees here & there. According to an FPL
> report from the 1930's there was about 45 BILLION board feet of
> havestable Sitka spruce in American forests and about three times that
> amount in Canada.
>
> But not in large stands. You'll occasionally see a pocket of nothing
> but Sitka spruce but it normally grows in mixed stands, usually with
> Western Hemlock. That's because of a little bug called the Spruce
> Weevil. In the wild, growing in mixed stands, the spruce weevil isn't
> much of a problem but it's deadly to single-specie stands of Sitka
> spruce, as people have discovered from single-specie 're-forestation'
> projects. Major thigh-slapper to foresters. Millions of dollars
> wasted to produce square miles of Spruce Weevil fodder. [The weevil
> attacks the new growth; you end up with a stunted, ground-hugging shrub
> -- a 'forest' less than chest high.) USDA still has a lot to learn
> from Mother Nature :-) (Today, the largest stands of Sitka spruce are
> probably in Europe.)
>
> The reality of Sitka spruce is that only 6% to 8% of an A-class log is
> liable to meet aircraft-quality specs. Even then, the stick has to be
> quarter-sawn before it can be accurately graded which means the sawyer
> is liable to lose money on the deal unless he knows he's got a market
> for it.
>
> Fortunately, that reality works both ways. Since the major expense is
> in the wastage and labor of resawing, if you can find a nice balk of
> Sitka spruce and do the cutting, curing and grading yourself, you can
> save over 90% compared to store-bought 'certified' spruce. (During the
> height of the Depression, in order to save on freight and reduce
> wasteage, Bill Piper Sr. drove to Oregon and hauled hand-selected loads
> of spar-stock back to Pennsylvania on a rented trailer.)
>
> Some lumber companies here in California still run their own barges
> down from the PNW (Dixieline is one) and are willing to throw a log or
> two on the load and even mill it to your spec. Assuming your pockets
> are deep enough :-)
>
> On the other hand, Western Hemlock is an acceptable substitute for
> Sitka spruce and is about 8x more plentiful, plus the yield of
> 'aircraft-quality' timber is 10% to 12% for the same size log.
>

OK, let's say i go to the nearest supplier who has (allegedly) got some
Sitka of the correct quality. Let's say he has some boards about 12 foot
long and about 6 inches square.
OK, I think I can manage a ring count and gradient as well as seeing if my
spars will come out quarter sawn. after that, i'm lost. I think I can
probably spot a fracture on a raw board and moisture isn't realyan isue
since i know someone who can kinln dry it for me, but aside formall this,
what am I really looking for?

[plasticguy]

> OK, let's say i go to the nearest supplier who has (allegedly) got some
> Sitka of the correct quality. Let's say he has some boards about 12 foot
> long and about 6 inches square.
> OK, I think I can manage a ring count and gradient as well as seeing if my
> spars will come out quarter sawn. after that, i'm lost. I think I can
> probably spot a fracture on a raw board and moisture isn't realyan isue
> since i know someone who can kinln dry it for me, but aside formall this,
> what am I really looking for?

Theres an old AC on the subject. Also look thru AC43.
Another place to look is for "LADDER GRADE" wood.
Older fire department ladders were wood and had very similar
requirements as airplane spars. Asking for ladder grade wood
is easier to do than to ask for airplane spar stock. Now that you have
more places to look, go find what you need. Take a plane and put a few
strokes
on the end of what you might need, look it over. You should be able to
find what you need. NOW DON"T TAKE MY HEAD OFF, I didn't say
to substitute ladder grade for AC43 wood. I just said that the specs are so
close
that asking for ladder grade wood gets you a bunch more places to check out
and doesn't get people afraid of liability...... Scott.
>

[Caveat Empty Headed]

"plasticguy" >
:

>
>> OK, let's say i go to the nearest supplier who has (allegedly) got
>> some Sitka of the correct quality. Let's say he has some boards about
>> 12 foot long and about 6 inches square.
>> OK, I think I can manage a ring count and gradient as well as seeing
>> if my spars will come out quarter sawn. after that, i'm lost. I think
>> I can probably spot a fracture on a raw board and moisture isn't
>> realyan isue since i know someone who can kinln dry it for me, but
>> aside formall this, what am I really looking for?
>
> Theres an old AC on the subject. Also look thru AC43.
> Another place to look is for "LADDER GRADE" wood.
> Older fire department ladders were wood and had very similar
> requirements as airplane spars. Asking for ladder grade wood
> is easier to do than to ask for airplane spar stock. Now that you
> have more places to look, go find what you need. Take a plane and put
> a few strokes
> on the end of what you might need, look it over. You should be able
> to find what you need. NOW DON"T TAKE MY HEAD OFF, I didn't say
> to substitute ladder grade for AC43 wood. I just said that the specs
> are so close
> that asking for ladder grade wood gets you a bunch more places to
> check out and doesn't get people afraid of liability...... Scott.
>>
>
Yeah, I have the AC all right. What i need is a bit more pratical advice.
One of the other guys in my group got some very god spruce form this
dealer. the dealer himself seems to know what it is i'm looking for and is
going to let me see a good selection of logs. Local dealers are a problem
for me, actually (I'm not in the US) Local spruce is crap, forthe most part
and this is genuine sitka from Canada, but it isn't desgnated "aircraft
Spruce" so it's up to me to eyeball it when I'm buying it and make a god
cal on the day so's I don't waste my time and money. The plane idea's a
good one though!

[[email protected]]

First, find the center of the tree :-)

Looking at the butt-end of the 6x6, note the curvature of the annular
rings. You want to rotate the six-by until the curves are up, the
'cup' is down.

if the log was quarter-sawn the center of the log will be straight
down, relative to the center of curvature. It probably won't be but
the following will still work.

Because a log is a cylinder you can't avoid some curvature in the
annular rings across the width of a spar but you'd like to have them
symmetrical; without any slope from one edge to the other, which is why
you use quarter-sawing. This is because you want the stresses of
flight to be uniformly distributed around the center of the spar. If
their is any slope to the annular rings the center is displaced toward
the down-hill side of the slope. and some portions of the spar's
cross-section end up seeing higher stresses than other portions.

The amount of curvature across a 6x6 will give you some idea of the
diameter of the log. Since you want the flattest possible curvature
you want wood from near the outside of a log about four feet in
diameter. By measuring the center height of an annular ring as well as
its chord (ie, width of the timber) you can work out the diameter at
that particular section of the tree. For 10 rings to the inch , for a
six inch timber, a center height of about a quarter of an inch sez the
tree was about four foot across at that point. Which is good. Closer
you get to the core, the more pin-knots & pitch pockets you'll
encounter. What you'd like to get is wood from the mature growth of
the tree, after it's attained enough height so that it stops throwing
out branches.

So long as the ring count is uniform, anything from 8 per inch on up
will pass inspection but critical builders will often spec a minimum of
10 or 12 rings per inch. Anything more than 16 or so, the weight goes
up faster than the strength, which is why that old-growth Doug fir,
with counts up to 32/in looks better on paper than in use -- the stuff
runs about 40 pounds a cubic foot (!)

If all that checks out, take a look at the run-out of the grain. You
can do this on either surface, once you know how it was sawn. MilSpec
calls for a minimum of 1 in 15, meaning you pick out a grain and follow
it for 15 inches. If it moves more than an inch laterally in that
distance, you look for another stick.

The truth is, minimum grain run-out is determined by the part in the
airplane, in that you'd like to have the grain not run out for the
length of the part. For example, with a 16' spar having a depth of six
inches you'd like to have a run-out of 1-in-32, which would be the
ideal. One in fifteen is a little more than twice that and practice
has shown that's good enough.

In reality, working with wood taken from near the base of the tree (ie,
where the 'cylinder' is fairly uniform), with Sitka spruce it's not
uncommon to see grain having a run-out of one inch in fifteen FEET.
(You really gotta love wood like that :-)

Is it twisted? (If so, you don't want it.) To discover twist, you
need to examine both side of the piece, looking at the position of the
grain relative to the edge and comparing one side against the other.
If the grain is twisted, the run-out on one edge will be different from
the other. That's okay for bridge timbers but when you slice the balk
into spars, they'll tend to turn into pig-tails. Trees exposed to the
wind often have unusual grain patterns -- curves, spirals and so on.
Not the sort of thing you want in an airplane (or a mast).

Compression fractures are easy to spot in freshly sawn lumber (ie, when
you have both sides of the log available for inspection) but difficult
to detect after the lumber has cured. To get it to show up you need to
plane the surface. It's kind of hard to describe what a compression
failure looks like but it gives itself away as an anomolous feature,
usually linear and regular, that cuts across the grain. On close
inspection the annular rings may appear to have been offset by some
small amount and the cellular structure of the wood across the off-set
portion will be compressed. You'll need about a 3x loupe to see this
clearly but the usual inspection doesn't need to go that far since the
other evidence tells you what you need to know.

An honest sawyer won't sell you wood having a compression fracture...
unless you work for Home Depot or whatever. (Then they'll sell you
ANYTHING :-)

Truth is, it's not as hard as it sounds. But it remains a subjective
analysis in which experience plays a crucial role. Fortunately, the
odds are overwhelmingly in your favor.

This has probably been about as clear as mud. Kinda hard to describe
something you learned by actually handling the wood.

-R.S.Hoover

PS -- The liteature takes a stab at explaining 'quarter-sawn' but it's
pretty clear most authors have never stood there and watched it happen
:-)

[Caveat Empty headed]

egroups.com:

> First, find the center of the tree :-)
>
> Looking at the butt-end of the 6x6, note the curvature of the annular
> rings. You want to rotate the six-by until the curves are up, the
> 'cup' is down.
>
> if the log was quarter-sawn the center of the log will be straight
> down, relative to the center of curvature. It probably won't be but
> the following will still work.
>
> Because a log is a cylinder you can't avoid some curvature in the
> annular rings across the width of a spar but you'd like to have them
> symmetrical; without any slope from one edge to the other, which is why
> you use quarter-sawing. This is because you want the stresses of
> flight to be uniformly distributed around the center of the spar. If
> their is any slope to the annular rings the center is displaced toward
> the down-hill side of the slope. and some portions of the spar's
> cross-section end up seeing higher stresses than other portions.
>
> The amount of curvature across a 6x6 will give you some idea of the
> diameter of the log. Since you want the flattest possible curvature
> you want wood from near the outside of a log about four feet in
> diameter. By measuring the center height of an annular ring as well as
> its chord (ie, width of the timber) you can work out the diameter at
> that particular section of the tree. For 10 rings to the inch , for a
> six inch timber, a center height of about a quarter of an inch sez the
> tree was about four foot across at that point. Which is good. Closer
> you get to the core, the more pin-knots & pitch pockets you'll
> encounter. What you'd like to get is wood from the mature growth of
> the tree, after it's attained enough height so that it stops throwing
> out branches.
>
> So long as the ring count is uniform, anything from 8 per inch on up
> will pass inspection but critical builders will often spec a minimum of
> 10 or 12 rings per inch. Anything more than 16 or so, the weight goes
> up faster than the strength, which is why that old-growth Doug fir,
> with counts up to 32/in looks better on paper than in use -- the stuff
> runs about 40 pounds a cubic foot (!)
>
> If all that checks out, take a look at the run-out of the grain. You
> can do this on either surface, once you know how it was sawn. MilSpec
> calls for a minimum of 1 in 15, meaning you pick out a grain and follow
> it for 15 inches. If it moves more than an inch laterally in that
> distance, you look for another stick.
>
> The truth is, minimum grain run-out is determined by the part in the
> airplane, in that you'd like to have the grain not run out for the
> length of the part. For example, with a 16' spar having a depth of six
> inches you'd like to have a run-out of 1-in-32, which would be the
> ideal. One in fifteen is a little more than twice that and practice
> has shown that's good enough.
>
> In reality, working with wood taken from near the base of the tree (ie,
> where the 'cylinder' is fairly uniform), with Sitka spruce it's not
> uncommon to see grain having a run-out of one inch in fifteen FEET.
> (You really gotta love wood like that :-)
>
> Is it twisted? (If so, you don't want it.) To discover twist, you
> need to examine both side of the piece, looking at the position of the
> grain relative to the edge and comparing one side against the other.
> If the grain is twisted, the run-out on one edge will be different from
> the other. That's okay for bridge timbers but when you slice the balk
> into spars, they'll tend to turn into pig-tails. Trees exposed to the
> wind often have unusual grain patterns -- curves, spirals and so on.
> Not the sort of thing you want in an airplane (or a mast).
>
> Compression fractures are easy to spot in freshly sawn lumber (ie, when
> you have both sides of the log available for inspection) but difficult
> to detect after the lumber has cured. To get it to show up you need to
> plane the surface. It's kind of hard to describe what a compression
> failure looks like but it gives itself away as an anomolous feature,
> usually linear and regular, that cuts across the grain. On close
> inspection the annular rings may appear to have been offset by some
> small amount and the cellular structure of the wood across the off-set
> portion will be compressed. You'll need about a 3x loupe to see this
> clearly but the usual inspection doesn't need to go that far since the
> other evidence tells you what you need to know.
>
> An honest sawyer won't sell you wood having a compression fracture...
> unless you work for Home Depot or whatever. (Then they'll sell you
> ANYTHING :-)
>
> Truth is, it's not as hard as it sounds. But it remains a subjective
> analysis in which experience plays a crucial role. Fortunately, the
> odds are overwhelmingly in your favor.
>
> This has probably been about as clear as mud. Kinda hard to describe
> something you learned by actually handling the wood.

No, actually, that's exactly what i needed. A step by step appraoch to
actually examining a log. All those 1940's reprints of government flyers
bout it have only confused the hell out of me.
>
> -R.S.Hoover
>
> PS -- The liteature takes a stab at explaining 'quarter-sawn' but it's
> pretty clear most authors have never stood there and watched it happen
>:-)

Actually, that's the one part i understand well!

Thanks a million of that. Might be an idea if you wrote that down and sent
it to the EAA to put in some future edition of one of their books.
>
>

[Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired]

Caveat Empty Headed wrote:

> "plasticguy" >
> :
>
>
>>>OK, let's say i go to the nearest supplier who has (allegedly) got
>>>some Sitka of the correct quality. Let's say he has some boards about
>>>12 foot long and about 6 inches square.
>>>OK, I think I can manage a ring count and gradient as well as seeing
>>>if my spars will come out quarter sawn. after that, i'm lost. I think
>>>I can probably spot a fracture on a raw board and moisture isn't
>>>realyan isue since i know someone who can kinln dry it for me, but
>>>aside formall this, what am I really looking for?
>>
>>Theres an old AC on the subject. Also look thru AC43.
>>Another place to look is for "LADDER GRADE" wood.
>>Older fire department ladders were wood and had very similar
>>requirements as airplane spars. Asking for ladder grade wood
>>is easier to do than to ask for airplane spar stock. Now that you
>>have more places to look, go find what you need. Take a plane and put
>>a few strokes
>>on the end of what you might need, look it over. You should be able
>>to find what you need. NOW DON"T TAKE MY HEAD OFF, I didn't say
>>to substitute ladder grade for AC43 wood. I just said that the specs
>>are so close
>>that asking for ladder grade wood gets you a bunch more places to
>>check out and doesn't get people afraid of liability...... Scott.
>>
> Yeah, I have the AC all right. What i need is a bit more pratical advice.
> One of the other guys in my group got some very god spruce form this
> dealer. the dealer himself seems to know what it is i'm looking for and is
> going to let me see a good selection of logs. Local dealers are a problem
> for me, actually (I'm not in the US) Local spruce is crap, forthe most part
> and this is genuine sitka from Canada, but it isn't desgnated "aircraft
> Spruce" so it's up to me to eyeball it when I'm buying it and make a god
> cal on the day so's I don't waste my time and money. The plane idea's a
> good one though!


Get with your local EAA chapter, they should have a few people who can
show you around.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

[Caveat Empty headed]

"Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired" >
sednews:KC_ae.32825$d43.8168@lakeread03:

> Caveat Empty Headed wrote:
>
>> "plasticguy" >
>> :
>>
>>
>>>>OK, let's say i go to the nearest supplier who has (allegedly) got
>>>>some Sitka of the correct quality. Let's say he has some boards
>>>>about 12 foot long and about 6 inches square.
>>>>OK, I think I can manage a ring count and gradient as well as seeing
>>>>if my spars will come out quarter sawn. after that, i'm lost. I
>>>>think I can probably spot a fracture on a raw board and moisture
>>>>isn't realyan isue since i know someone who can kinln dry it for me,
>>>>but aside formall this, what am I really looking for?
>>>
>>>Theres an old AC on the subject. Also look thru AC43.
>>>Another place to look is for "LADDER GRADE" wood.
>>>Older fire department ladders were wood and had very similar
>>>requirements as airplane spars. Asking for ladder grade wood
>>>is easier to do than to ask for airplane spar stock. Now that you
>>>have more places to look, go find what you need. Take a plane and
>>>put a few strokes
>>>on the end of what you might need, look it over. You should be able
>>>to find what you need. NOW DON"T TAKE MY HEAD OFF, I didn't say
>>>to substitute ladder grade for AC43 wood. I just said that the specs
>>>are so close
>>>that asking for ladder grade wood gets you a bunch more places to
>>>check out and doesn't get people afraid of liability...... Scott.
>>>
>> Yeah, I have the AC all right. What i need is a bit more pratical
>> advice. One of the other guys in my group got some very god spruce
>> form this dealer. the dealer himself seems to know what it is i'm
>> looking for and is going to let me see a good selection of logs.
>> Local dealers are a problem for me, actually (I'm not in the US)
>> Local spruce is crap, forthe most part and this is genuine sitka from
>> Canada, but it isn't desgnated "aircraft Spruce" so it's up to me to
>> eyeball it when I'm buying it and make a god cal on the day so's I
>> don't waste my time and money. The plane idea's a good one though!
>
>
> Get with your local EAA chapter, they should have a few people who can
> show you around.
>

Yeah, I found one guy in my local group that seems to know what he's
talking about. He's connected me with a lumber yard (not exactly down the
road, but WTH)
BTW, ther is no local chapter where i live! Most of the guys are building
very different types of machines than my old tube and rag, too.

[Ron Wanttaja]

On 21 Apr 2005 23:52:07 GMT, "Caveat Empty Headed." > wrote:

>I've located a source of spruce in British Columbia that appears to be very
>good. http://www.timberwright.ca/aircraft.html
>anyone dealt with them?

One of our Fly Baby list folks visited them last summer, and was very pleased.
You should be able to access his posting at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flybabylist/message/4034

Ron Wanttaja

[Caveat Empty headed]

Ron Wanttaja >
:

> On 21 Apr 2005 23:52:07 GMT, "Caveat Empty Headed." > wrote:
>
>>I've located a source of spruce in British Columbia that appears to be
>>very good. http://www.timberwright.ca/aircraft.html
>>anyone dealt with them?
>
> One of our Fly Baby list folks visited them last summer, and was very
> pleased. You should be able to access his posting at:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flybabylist/message/4034
>
> Ron Wanttaja
>


Excellent. Thanks Ron. Exactly what i needed to know.

[jerry wass]

Ron Wanttaja wrote:
> On 21 Apr 2005 23:52:07 GMT, "Caveat Empty Headed." > wrote:
>
>
>>I've located a source of spruce in British Columbia that appears to be very
>>good. http://www.timberwright.ca/aircraft.html
>>anyone dealt with them?
>
>
> One of our Fly Baby list folks visited them last summer, and was very pleased.
> You should be able to access his posting at:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flybabylist/message/4034
>
> Ron Wanttaja

One LEETLE thing !! Order your boards the approximate width of their
final use size---i.e. final size + 1/2 " or so for final STRAIGHTENING
AND TRIMMING. I had some beautiful edge grain Doug Fir Kiln Dried, that
had aged in storage for some time nice and flat and straight.. --
I ripped a 1X6 down the middle and had two pieces with about a 1" bow
toward the middle, you could see it opening up as you sawed it--14 Ft.
long. This board had a slight change in the # of growth rings across
the board...must have set up a stress due to the difference in density
across---was probably a small--(relatively} tree.

to get my 4-1/2" spars out of a 5-1/2" board, I sawed about 3/16" off
each side --checked for straightness, let it set a day or two & repeated
the process till I got down to planing & checking after each run
through the planer..

DON'T TAKE IT ALL OFF ONE SIDE AT ONCE !!---Jerry

[Lou]

If your going to go through this much trouble (just a choice of words),
you might want to consider ordering your lumber rough sawn. Although I
used Doug Fir, I ordered my materials rough sawn and was able to mill
twice as many of the smaller parts from a 1" rough sawn board than 3/4"
planed material. It really keeps the cost down. On the down side, you
will have to invest in a cheap planer.
Lou