#balsawood

[ilfirinart]

Trebuchet – WIP! After weeks of working on hedges, trees and stone scatter, I wanted to challenge myself with something more precise and mechanical. So I decided to scratchbuild a medieval trebuchet, inspired by both the Lord of the Rings setting and the Games Workshop model.

Working with balsa wood was a new adventure for me. The material is soft and easy to cut, but fragile and sometimes unpredictable — I had to re-cut some parts more than once. You definitely need to learn how to use it properly and in which direction the cuts should go. Still, shaping each beam and frame piece by piece was really enjoyable. Everything is glued with PVA, an obvious choice for this kind of project. Some smaller details were made using Milliput and thin cardboard.

There’s still more to do: I need to add a chain, a sling with a stone, and then move on to painting. I’m curious how the final look will turn out once the weathering and wood tones are layered in.

It feels refreshing to build something “engineered” rather than organic. Terrain pieces like trees and rocks create atmosphere, but war machines bring a different kind of presence to the table — like something epic and heavy is about to happen and you should be prepared for everything.

💬 Question for fellow makers: do you know any good (and cheaper) substitute for balsa wood? I’d love to hear your ideas.

[peanutsairplanes]

✈ DIDO II

📸 1.997 · RC Model Nº 197

Plano realizado para RC Model a partir del croquis de B. Carratalá.

[funguy-productions]

I built a tiny well Built out of foam and balsa wood in War Hammer scale Find it on Instagram Here

[seamus-liam-obrien]

Hand painted ‘Thank You’ cards by Seamus Liam O'Brien Via Flickr: A selection of painted ‘Thank You’ cards I made for friends, family, and colleagues. Not really cards in the traditional sense... they are actually sheets of painted balsa wood that fit within a normal business envelope. ‘Thank’ on one side, ‘You’ on the other.

[elevenchoices]

Kon-Tiki, legendary explorer Thor Heyerdal's epic 4,300-mile crossing of the Pacific on a balsawood raft in 1947, in an effort to prove that it was possible for South Americans to settle in Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. 

[marx-of-tzara]

Jon Rolfe Leach 'Cages filled with terror: feelings no longer singing' (2019) Acrylic, spray paint, collage, balsa. 12x9in

[modelarchitecture]

looking for its owner

[teenytinydinosaurfarm]

GOAT HOUSE

In 2015 I bought three goats. L to R: Cinder, Demanda and Grace. Alpine mixes that were close to a year old, had never been handled, and were quite squirrely. A neighbor heading to Central America for a few months had decided to eat them instead of finding someone to take care of them. His wife, who had a horrible commute and wasn’t around enough to care for them, contacted me covertly as their son was upset about the goats becoming food. She talked me into trading her hens for the goats, and I agreed.

I'd gone down to visit them at their farm and they were healthy enough. We didn’t go in to the pens and I was surprised when they delivered to discover how untamed the goats were. They wanted nothing to do with me. They also had horns which they caught in just about every nesting box, leaving eggs mashed all over the place and nesting boxes torn asunder as they flailed around disengaging them.

I’d always wanted goats but wasn’t set up to house them, I moved as quickly as I could to get set up for them, but it wasn’t fast enough.

I’d put them in a dog run that wraps around the house temporarily, and they took over a greenhouse I use as a coop. Inside there's a balsa house of such poor quality that the seller on Amazon didn’t even want it back when I called to return it. We put it together as a lark, figuring it would work for the chickens for a few months while we figured something else out. Several years later, we're still using it, though it was certainly the worse for wear. The chickens like it.

When they got scared, the goats would cram into this tiny house to hide. Three goats in a small space had it nearly bursting at the seams. The clamoring and scraping seemed it would be the death of the house every single time, but as it turned out, it outlasted the goats.

Faster than I could accommodate them, they developed an appetite for my ancient board and batten house siding and I’d wake up hearing the scraping of their teeth as they removed chunk after chunk of 90 year old wood.  Every day I’d have to put up another board to cover the hole they’d eaten that morning. Nothing seemed to slow them down, I learned this the hard way, it’s nearly impossible to deter goats on a mission.

I’d finally scraped together the $$$ to build a proper fence to keep the goats in when I faced a quandary of my own. We were going abroad and our tried and true pet sitter tried to back out of watching the farm as he was afraid of caring for the goats. We went back and forth quite a bit before we agreed we’d trade the goats with the fence builder in exchange for a series of gates in the fencing.

It wasn’t a bad deal for the goats, the builder has 5 kids who'd started coming around regularly to play with the goats, and they were happy to finally take them home with them. I was sorry to see them go and remember them when I see the crumbling balsa house and the row of wooden patches that run alongside the house.

I’m again looking at getting a few goats, after the three trips I have on the books. I’d like to get them little and springy, polled/dis-budded and handled at least a little before they arrive. I like Minature Silky Goats, like these...