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Building Tips and technical articles. => Building techniques => Topic started by: Gary Anderson on June 07, 2009, 10:35:24 PM
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Hi guys,
Has anyone used birch for motor mounts? I'm having a hard time finding maple wood and was wondering if this wood would be okay to use. I could order wood from the hobby store but I don't need any other items at this time and the local dump doesn't stock motor mounts (Maple wood). I guess I'll just have to wait until I can think of any other items I might need??? Would appreciate your input, Gary (The Birch wood only cost .57 cents a foot????) I guess I'm just cheap?????
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Birch is rather soft compared to theRock Maple, and will split alongthe grain pretty easy if used for motor mounts. I have used 7 ply birch aircraft ply before on .15 to .35 size motors.
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Hi guys,
Has anyone used birch for motor mounts? I'm having a hard time finding maple wood and was wondering if this wood would be okay to use. I could order wood from the hobby store but I don't need any other items at this time and the local dump doesn't stock motor mounts (Maple wood). I guess I'll just have to wait until I can think of any other items I might need??? Would appreciate your input, Gary (The Birch wood only cost .57 cents a foot????) I guess I'm just cheap?????
It might work if you had some very hard birch - it's as variable as balsa. I have used cherry, walnut, and oak. None are as good as rock maple. I would just bite the bullet, get out the SIG catalog, and order it. Or make a trek to any of the Bay Area hobby shops and buy it there. I recommend J&M hobby house, but D&J or Sheldon's has it, too.
Brett
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Where you go may depend on your bearer size and length. SIG berarers are 12" long in all the popular sizes. Brodak is carrying most of the popular sizes in 18" lengths as well. Depends on your length of course, but you might be able to save some waste on some models cutting 2 pieces from the longer lengths.
Cheers, Geoff
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You can also get good motor mount stock from Bill Sawyer.
However, Yellow (Flame) Birch is every bit as hard (and heavy) as Sugar Maple. It makes excellent motor mounts. White Birch is a no-no, as it tends to be rather soft. It is tough, though, so if that's all you can get, use large pads under the engine and you should be OK. Heck, Tom Morris uses Spruce!
White Oak (Pin Oak, for example) is OK, too, but be sure all holes line up and are a bit oversize. White Oak tends to split it stressed by misfit bolt holes. Pecan is good, too. Hickory will work if you can find straight stock.
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I have a pile of hard birch scarp from a woodworking project, cut off from drawer sides. Works fine for motor mounts.
Some birch is hard and some is not. Balsa USA used to sell birch for motor mounts. I bought some maple from the local home improvement store. Not rock maple by any means. The birch I have is better.
Find a floor guy, or a kitchen place that makes cutting boards. Just a little bit of cut offs will last forever.
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Rock maple shows up in strange places. I've seen some top notch material in the form of rolling pins, of all things. I build aircraft cabinets for a living, and with all my connections I still have a hard time finding sugar or rock maple. It's really common up north around Vermont and Maine. There's a piece on eBay that caught my eye but I would never use four feet of rock maple in a hundred years. Believe it or not, sugar maple is popular as a smoker wood. It's also pretty popular with chair makers, especially rocking chairs. I have a large piece of maple that is pretty hard, and it may be hard enough to do the job. My question is which epoxy is best for laminating ply to the maple for a profile plane?
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i was able to find maple at lowes building supply thea at short pcs. in about 12" i think they had maple cherry birch pine ect.
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I took my maple board to work today and asked the opinion of a co-worker that builds stringed musical instruments on the side and he informed me that my board needed to be chopped in half so he could make a violin back with it. The remainder, he said, would make good hard sticks for motor mounts. I milled down a couple of 1/2" x 1/2" sticks and a bunch of 1/2" x 3/8" sticks. They have been run through a surface sander and have no saw marks on them. The sticks weigh about 24 grams per linear foot. I have more sticks than I could shake a stick at. Anyone need a stick?
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Better hang on to those as they will disappear faster then you think. I always ordered mine from Lonestar Balsa by the dozen. Need to order more as I am out. DOC Holliday
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A good source for hard maple is the handles of those little wire toothbrushes. If you find the right ones at supply houses and lumber yards, their dimensions are right at 1/2" x 3/8". In fact some of the hardest rock maple I have ever seen was from the handle of one of these wire brushes.
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This has been a very interesting thread to be sure.
Quote:
"A good source for hard maple is the handles of those little wire toothbrushes. If you find the right ones at supply houses and lumber yards, their dimensions are right at 1/2" x 3/8". In fact some of the hardest rock maple I have ever seen was from the handle of one of these wire brushes."
That is a good reminder! I used to work at an auto parts store and their large and small wire brushes had some surprisingly hard wooden handles. I still have a couple.
One thought regarding these handles. I went to Harbor Freight a couple of weeks ago and was thinking about those hardwood handles and looked at some and many are made of plastic that is shaded about the same color as the wooden ones... Some are black plastic which you could tell from across the room. Could this be the end of these hardwood handles?
Robert
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Hi Gary;
Call Ideal Saw Works in Fresno, they carry variaty of woods for woodworkers, and may have what you want. They used to stock a bin of "scraps" that might have big enough sizes to cut good motor mounts from.
See Ya Sunday!
Brian