How heat effets balsa and planes?

[steve pagano]

Hi Gents;


     I was thinking of building multiple storage shelves under my work bench to hold my stock of balsa and components to aircraft I'm building, Such as wings and fuselages that have not been joined yet.

    My only problem would be that there is a wall heater under there also but on the opeset end of the bench. Would the heat do damage to the balsa or the wings and other components?


                                    T.I.A
                                     -Steve

[Bill Little]

It will really dry it out!  As long as it is flat, and not close enough (or the heater isn't hot enough) for anything to catch fire, it shuold be ok.  I don't know if heat, by itself, will warp or damage balsa, never had that problem, all my stuff is in the basement, and never gets very warm..  Drying balsa makes it lighter!

[steve pagano]

It will really dry it out!  As long as it is flat, and not close enough (or the heater isn't hot enough) for anything to catch fire, it shuold be ok.  I don't know if heat, by itself, will warp or damage balsa, never had that problem, all my stuff is in the basement, and never gets very warm..  Drying balsa makes it lighter!

If drying balsa makes it lighter with the heat i got under the work bench i can get something the size of a 2x4 down to about an once!!

[Mike Spiess]

As a guy who has worked with wood all his life. I would recommend not to subject it to heat if at all possible. I don't know if you have ac that comes from there but that would be worse. Wood really likes it's environment as stable as possible. It will dry out with out heat and will be less likely to warp if dried slowly. But all the balsa we get is already dried as much as it will get and only change with the humidity. BUT those changes can and will warp it over time especially if not stored flat. Adding heat will make it really dry and will soak up moisture when you build with it and warps can creep into what ever you build. So I would recommend store it in a place without much temperature and humidity change and as close to your normal weather as possible. But to put in a declaimer wood changes from season to season so warps, shrinkage and swelling can happen any time until its completely sealed from moisture.

[Scott Jenkins]

While it is true that heat variations will affect any wood product and there is such a thing as too dry.
There is a method I used to control warpage and over drying. If you are going to modify, build a storage container then make sure it is completely sealed since you are already close to a heat source there not much to keep you from using it a small computer fan or similar item in one of the walls it will work quite well jus tremember to put an air outlet on the opposite side of the box. Controling warpage in balsa is easier than you think. I use 1/2 x 4" x 36" metal plate to lay on top of a similar size wood same for other sizes just add matching plates. The plates will always be heavier than the bulk of balsa wood you put under it and it will stay straight. The trick is to keep the humidity in your shop at the same level as much as possible. Then use the wood and seal it just like you normally do.
I have balsa procured from 30 years ago work just as well a new from the hobby shop. Actually we were quite fortunate most of our wood was scrap from the shipyard where they used it to stablize liguid natural gas in ocean going tankers every time they would finish a ship the scrap was up for grabs. Though it was not the best of balsa available there was nothing better than filling up a pick up truck with 12"x12"x12' lengths and taking it home to slice up with a bandsaw. Back then we flew a lot of combat and played with designs as much as possible. You should have seen peoples eyes when they walked into the garage and saw a solid wall of 8' lengths hanging from the wall. We stored it in 6"x6"x8' then cut to size as necessary. Enough rambling on my part but there are good memorys.

Scott