I have need of a little space frame, to be covered with uncertified dacron and painted with house paint, for an application only peripherally airplane related, and started pricing materials.
I'm not going to pretend these materials are structurally equivalent, but all are stiff enough and strong enough for my purposes and CLOSE to fuselage longerons of established designs. Select Whitewood is knot-free, quite straight, good strength to weight, and available within bicycling distance of my house from Home Repo. I was a little surprised how hard it is to find thin wall aluminum in the Bay Area, this is actually the AS&S price in Corona, the only local source I've found so far was higher.
| material | lb/ft | $/ft |
| wood, 3/4" square Select Whitewood | 0.105 | $0.42 |
| alu tube 1 x .035 | 0.16 | $3.75 |
| EMT 1/2” | 0.3 | $0.53 |
I'm not going to pretend these materials are structurally equivalent, but all are stiff enough and strong enough for my purposes and CLOSE to fuselage longerons of established designs. Select Whitewood is knot-free, quite straight, good strength to weight, and available within bicycling distance of my house from Home Repo. I was a little surprised how hard it is to find thin wall aluminum in the Bay Area, this is actually the AS&S price in Corona, the only local source I've found so far was higher.
