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A study of aircraft wood

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Stoyan

New Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2017
Messages
4
Location
Bulgaria
Hello! My name is Stoyan, thats my first post here, so excuse me for not being professional. I am an aircraft mechanic and rc aircraft modeller, and in the recent years I am studying and preparing my self to build and ultralight all wood aircraft. I am living in Bulgaria, which is in eastern Europe, and getting aircraft grade wood here is almost as expensive as impossible. During the WW2 we have produced quite a few wooden aircrafts, so picking local wood is preferred for me.
Any way, I will show a few pictures of 1/4x1/4 sitka spruce that I bought from aircraft spruce, and some wood i picked from local yards.

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The one on the right is the sitca spruce I bought, the one on the left is local wood. What I would like to ask you is about the grain on both samples. First of all aircraft wood should have like more than 8 rings per inch, so is it correct that the more rings per inch the better? The sitka spruce have few rings than the local sample and it is not exactly edge grained? So to sum up, which wood is better?
I was keen on testing the real strength of both samples so I made the easiest test. I used bathroom tiles. One of them is 1.5 kg, both samples didnt break with 3 tiles load (4.5kg!) and when I applied the 4th they broke!
On the last picture is the place where they broke. The local one is on top. Sitka spruce lower.
Please share your experience and opinions with me! I have read a few books on aircraft wood and working with it but still have a lot of questions!
cheers !

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