I went to Lowes yesterday to look at their white pine, I found some pieces with some good tight grain but it didn't say what kind of pine it was, it just said pine, the salesman didn't know either, is this something to worry about?
I would suggest you take a look at this prior to construction for basic aircraft. http://www.sweethaven02.com/Aviation/MaintHandbook/ama_Ch06.pdf Also FAR part 41 for wood subsitutes. Your sizes will very for the strength requirements. See were you local cabinet maker gets his wood. BobN
There are many species of pine in North America. They very widely in properties. Be very cautious in wood choice cause your life is on the line. Also do not take for granted that your getting really good advice from a employ at any lumber yard or store . Do you not buy a kit from TEAM because you do not have the money? They sell the kits in sub kits to make them more affordable . Wood choice is a very serious business ! Best wishes for a safe build.
be careful of wood labeled "Pine" unless you know your species. Lowes does have good poplar and you can get good wood if you know what you are doing. lots of the just pine is sugar pine or lesser species.
If you hit a local lumber yard you may find someone who knows wood and can tell you what species they have. Take the FAA advisory circular to help you pick out the good stuff.
Yeah, I haven't bought anything from team because I cant afford the kits, I wish I could, just like my vp1 I have to buy stuff one piece at a time. sucks to be poor
Yeah, I haven't bought anything from team because I cant afford the kits, I wish I could, just like my vp1 I have to buy stuff one piece at a time. sucks to be poor
Yes it is not fun to be on a budget and I realize that. It took me ten years to build my Max. Part of that was money but a lot was not taking away from family time. I built from the sub-kits and of course that winds up being more expensive in the long run but it spreads out the cost. One of the least expensive things that you can do is educate yourself about the materials that you are using and we have many sources available to us for that purpose. This computer is a fantastic tool. This website is also a very good place to learn from others that have been there and done that. The knowledge that you seek about wood is out there but you need to dig a little for it cause it does not come via osmosis. I hope that you have a great build and that your dreams of flying your own airplane will become reality. Best wishes.
Yeah, I haven't bought anything from team because I cant afford the kits, I wish I could, just like my vp1 I have to buy stuff one piece at a time. sucks to be poor
That is what i am doing with my RagWing. Are you trying to make part 103 weights? if not go to a lumber yart, not menards or home depot and ask for douglas fir flooring. The plane will be heavier but stronger than one made of white pine or spruce.
And I have also found for smaller parts getting spruce from ACS isn't that bad but the shipping on the longer parts is expensive unless you live near them and can go get it.
be careful of wood labeled "Pine" unless you know your species. Lowes does have good poplar and you can get good wood if you know what you are doing. lots of the just pine is sugar pine or lesser species.
If you hit a local lumber yard you may find someone who knows wood and can tell you what species they have. Take the FAA advisory circular to help you pick out the good stuff.
Team recommends northern white pine for wing spar caps in the stress analysis report.I looked up wood database where the MOR for northern/eastern white pine(pinus strobus) is listed as 8600 pounds. MOR for suger pine is listed as 8200 pounds.It is also a type of white pine.The difference is quite small.
I fail to understand why it is being labeled as a lesser pine or for that matter any other white pine lesser to northern white pine.
Seriously you have to be very careful with wood. There are a lot of factors and most lumber yards are a fearful place for trying to get what you really need. It is common to have a bunch of different varieties and species mixed together purely on the basis of general appearance. Also something may be the right species but not have enough annual rings per inch to be suitable for aircraft use. You can get copies of the government grading standards for aircraft wood from Aircraft Spruce. You can start educating yourself on wood characteristics by downloading a copy of the Wood Handbook from the Forest Products Laboratory. I could write for hours on this, but it is best for you to buy or download every publication you can on the use of wood in aircraft and really learn this stuff. It should be part of the fun.
If you have a table saw and thickness planer you can but Sitka Spruce from boat building wood companies and mill your own stock. That way you are substituting your time for money. I have all that equipment but I must admit I still buy the kits from Team and any additional Sitka Spruce from Aircraft Spruce. It just saves time for me. It all depends on what is your scarcest resource, time or money.
I don’t disagree w words of advice or caution offered above. Certainly it is critical to build w quality, spec’d stock. Moreover, I have no doubt that either kit wood or stock from A.S./Wicks will save time. That said, I’ve looked through a fair amount of RS stamped kit stock, as well as flying birds and partially built projects, and the quality with respect to grain density and straightness seems to vary a fair amount. Granted, these have been older kits & birds, so I cannot say if/how compares to current TEAM Minimax kits. More importantly, for me personally, I actually enjoy the process of dimensioning stock. Of course a fair amount gets tossed for use elsewhere, so I am not sure exact cost comparison (I do suspect I save $$ not considering value of time). It just gives me some sort of satisfaction to go from lumber to RS spec stock to aircraft assembly. Still, I will admit, next set of ribs I build, will probably be with rib stock from A.S. Dimensioning 1/4” x 1/4” is a bear 😎🙄. Again, just my .02, but IMHO with a little self-education, patience, and effort it seems these birds can be built effectively with kit stock, A.S./Wicks stock, or builder dimensioned stock. I am no expert, and am still early in my own build project. But after looking thru, even taking apart, several max projects and flying birds, my take is max builders have several workable/accessible options, depending on personal circumstance and preference. But we do need to do our homework.
Why focus on proving how great you are, when you could focus on becoming better?...
Thought I'd explore a little more and buy some "bargain" spruce to dimension up for pieces other than spar caps and longerons. Aircraft Spruce had a sale so seemed pretty reasonable.
Ordered 3 "bargain bags" for total of $112. Cheapest shipping cost turned out to be $111.
I canceled my order. Just makes no sense.
Wish I lived within a couple hundred miles of A.S. or Wicks. The total amount of RS stock in a Max is not that much; but even if I justify cost of spruce itself, I just can't make sense of effectively doubling the cost due to shipping...
To each their own, but for now, I will continue to sort through boards at Home Depot, Lowes, or local lumber yard...
Why focus on proving how great you are, when you could focus on becoming better?...
These bargain bags are shipped UPS freight, where some minimum charges by carrier apply. If ( a big IF ) you have other bulky stuff like plywood sheets as add-on, those will come almost freight-free. I ordered a bargain bag and then added 5 sheets of ac plywood ( 2 x 8 ft ) and some plywood 2 x 4 ft and some cap strips for ribs, for a total of 145.00 in shipping. I had spar caps already with me, but I am fairly certain adding even those may not have moved the needle past 175.00 in shipping. Rates may have gone up about 8 to 10 % in these 3 years, but still these rates are fairly indicative. Not exactly inexpensive, but worth the amount for so many items. Attached is my invoice. I hope this info is of use to some builder.
Keith1000 - you have a good point. I did wonder what difference it would/would not make if I had placed bigger order w other items, such as plywood. Thx for info. It is helpful. .
Why focus on proving how great you are, when you could focus on becoming better?...
Obviously there is an advantage to big orders. Readers of this forum might be interested in an anecdote from my own experience as a shipper. We used to ship some long thin drafting splines. They were quite inexpensive, but the shipping on one spline was far more than what we charged for the spline. We could have shipped quite a large number for the same price. The result was that the buyers were outraged and repeatedly accused us of "gouging" them even though we charged nothing above our actual out of pocket cost of shipping. No "handling" charge or anything. The bad feeling was so dramatic that we thought it would do us serious harm. Yet at that time our customers were mostly students of ours who absolutely had to have these drafting splines. So we couldn't stop selling them. Finally in desperation we had to raise the price of the splines so they would cost more than the shipping. People were perfectly happy with that! I was quite open about what we did telling everyone that was what we had done and they were still happy. There's not real point to this story, but I do concur that most of the shipping costs are based on volume rather than weight and the way it works out is that the more you can order at one time the less the shipping impacts the total.
There is one more point to consider: Cheap wood is not really an advantage. Really good wood is very important in aircraft construction. No matter how much you pay to get really good wood you'll forget all about it once the plane is built. Compromise on the grade of wood and you'll worry about it as long as you own the aircraft. Most of the cost of your aircraft other than the engine will always be in the labor you put in if you value your labor at what you earn per hour.
In my neck of the woods, common framing wood is labeled as SPF. Attached is a table of the common species lumped into SPF which i have put together. As you see, all of these species exceed the strength of white pine in Elastic Modulus, as well as (for the most part) modulus of rupture and crushing strength. When it comes to substituting for white pine, i would personally be comfortable with any of these choices - provided they otherwise meet aircraft grade for spacing, runout, inclusions, etc. When it comes to needing to substitude for Sitka spruce with other designs, the comparison is much more difficult.
Yup that is a neat table. You can see that Balsam Fir is pretty close to White Pine BUT the table does not talk about pitch pockets in B. Fir or growth rings per inch. I would consider B. Fir to be a risky wood to use in aircraft construction. Moral of the story is do not bet your butt on just one table. Here in Maine both B. Fir and Red Spruce are sawn for dimensional stock and placed in the same bin of 2x4s. Red and Black Spruce have a ton of pin knots. BE CAREFUL OUT THERE. I applaud your freedom to choose your own wood. But use your freedom with caution.
I'd like to back up what Aeronut says. In my business I do a lot of structural analysis involving wood and it isn't all about the materials science of selected clear specimens. You want to really educate yourself on the characteristics of aircraft grade wood. Some of my favorite woods which might seem ideal for aircraft from the "tables" are practically speaking not practical or safe choices for various reasons. I've communicated with Aeronut a bit and believe he really knows wood.
I wish I could attach a really complete list of all the publications folks should be familiar with to work with wood in aircraft, but at least start with copies of the government grading specifications which you can get from Aircraft Spruce. I would also download a copy of the "Wood Handbook" from Forest Products Laboratory and everything you can find through Google of the old NACA reports on various aspects of wood aircraft construction. That's at least a start. Then I'd read everything you can from Gougeon Brothers on the use of wood and epoxy, even though it is oriented around boats, there's a lot you can learn. That's really just a start. There's a lot to think about and learn. I would support anyone in researching and experimenting, but for most people I would stick to the wood the aircraft was designed for. Saving money on wood is a tough game and usually doesn't pay off as well as you'd think it might. The cost of the wood itself is not a really large percentage of the cost of a completed, flying, aircraft. Buying the best wood will only cost, at worst, a few percent more than the cost of a less desirable wood.
Everyone agrees that all solutions should be simple and workable. I dont see any point in going through a host of publications to know suitable wood.
I am going the simple route on selecting wood..Whether I survive or not I will let you know in due course.
1. Smell. Yes its pine. 2.visual inspection. All that slope/ grain stuff. Anyone with common sense can identify bad wood. 3. specific gravity. ,3~~~ .4 Gives you idea of strength and gross weight. 4. 2 point or 1 point wood breaking test( if you want) gives you the MOR.
I am confident that these four points are all I need to know and reading tons of books is just for education and not needed at all.
There is always a tension between folks who instinctively want to find the minimum amount of information that they need to make a decision and those who instinctively want to find the maximum amount of information on the question at hand, and feel that education always pays off for them. These two thought patterns will never agree. When I recommend books and other publications it is for the folks who have found that wide ranging and in depth research pays off for them. It certainly has for me. Some key ideas I use for calculating modulus of elasticity using a very straight forward cantilevered beam test I first got from a book on designing and building astronomical telescopes! For those hovering between the two thought patterns, it may help to consider whether it is fun to learn more. For those who don't find it fun to learn, I think the criteria would be a what point do you judge you have learned enough so that you have minimized risk.
No offence meant but instinct tells me to get as much information as possible about wood and not vice versa as I would be the one falling with the splinters.With much conscious effort I convince myself that the actual info needed to label a wood piece as good is actually not much.
Dry Wood has to be sorted visually.Since I am an amateur, building an amateur built homebuilt aircraft I wont go beyond a visual inspection even if someone recommends a way.
After determining the species one is supposed to do a visual inspection. And a visual inspection is a visual inspection.I doubt any mortal can see through wood. In the visual inspection one has to exclude visible defects.How much information does one need to exclude a visible defect. Actually almost none.
Next comes specific gravity. Tells you how much wood or otherwise is in the wood.Just has to be comparable to the species under scrutiny. SG will give approx idea about strength. Thats it.Instinct tells me there must be something else but there isnt.
Now about the hidden part.What can not be seen visually or without breaking the wood. So go ahead break a piece and compare .How much information is needed for that.
I do have fun and want to learn about aviation matters and am open to criticism but in all fairness each problem needs a finite amount of informatiion.
I will be following this self devised 4 point grading method for my own use . I would be glad if someone points out this way of grading wood is wrong and inadequate.
Yup that is a neat table. You can see that Balsam Fir is pretty close to White Pine BUT the table does not talk about pitch pockets in B. Fir or growth rings per inch. I would consider B. Fir to be a risky wood to use in aircraft construction. Moral of the story is do not bet your butt on just one table. Here in Maine both B. Fir and Red Spruce are sawn for dimensional stock and placed in the same bin of 2x4s. Red and Black Spruce have a ton of pin knots. BE CAREFUL OUT THERE. I applaud your freedom to choose your own wood. But use your freedom with caution.
Exactly - which is why i included the phrase "provided they otherwise meet aircraft grade for spacing, runout, inclusions, etc." Fact is, some (many) of the species, even if they are "stronger" than White pine, may not provide enough clear "Aircraft Grade" lumber to be an effective substitute. My only point is there are certainly other options to White pine, provided someone take the time to sort through all of the junk. Personally, my time is worth too much to me to spend hours sorting through a stack of lumber.
Logged
poor folk unite!
