I've had a little go at using balsa wood recently as I managed to stumble by a pack of broken odd bits in a model shop which the nice dude let me have.

It's great for making slightly bigger models as the wires goes in well. I've had a go at some walls and other types of base.

I went to hobbie craft today to pick some up and saw that its very very over priced.

What alterntives can I look in to?

I was going to build a few basic things as my girldfriend is thinking of making a bagend.

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It's all fun and games untill someone gets hurt.
Then it's a sport.

How bad is it ? here, a yard or so of 1/16" x 3/8" is abotu a dollar, so not tooo bad IMO. If you have a table saw and a thin blade or a bandsaw with a rip fence then you can rip planks and beams out of prety much any wood.

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I use a lot of balsa and other hobby wood for a variety of scratchbuilding projects. I get a lot of my supplies from the 4D Modelshop:

http://www.modelshop.co.uk/product/Bals ... 10_SS92141

They have thousands of items!

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Published ebooks:
Instrument of the Empire
A Note of Defiance
Phantom Ships, Ghost Flotilla
More to come!

In hobby shop a single bit of balsa 5mm thick, 100mm wide, 1000mm long is about a fiver.

I have used a few bits of fiber board, 4mm and 7mm and its quite good, but hard to cut, impossible to carve and when you get longer than 300mm you really notice that its got a bend in it.

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It's all fun and games untill someone gets hurt.
Then it's a sport.

Balsa wood is a light soft wood most often used in flying model planes or boats. It is popular because it is soft enough to cut with razor blades. For alternatives you will need a saw. If you want to stay with razor blades try foam-core. You mentioned hobbie craft look and see if they have craft sticks. They should have the wide kind that doctor used to use and the kind pop cycles come on.A Razor saw will be good to start.

I used a scrap off cut from a 2"X11"X14' pine stair step for my new Hobbit hole. I use some scrap plywood and a jig saw for the small ones, See my gallery for finished photos.



try this link for all kinds of how tos.

http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

Thanks oldman willow. I have a hack saw but for smaller detail I think i'll have to invest in a razor saw.
I'll keep an eye out for wood to chop up but unfortunatly most furnature is made from chip board so there is not as much around.

I already have your site bookmarked. I am a big fan. One of the first things I crafted when I started the hobby was the books and scrolls from your artical.

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It's all fun and games untill someone gets hurt.
Then it's a sport.

For structural work, use Foamcore! It's a lot cheaper overall than balsa, and comes in larger sections too. But if you want a wood effect, then balsa is great - expensive, but great.

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Dagster

where is best to get foamcore from in uk

Any decent office supplies shop should be able to help out, it might be called foamcore..or foam board.

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No..you pronounce it..EL Rab-beet-oh.

There are many suppliers of foam board - for example:
http://www.paperstone.co.uk/prod_14682_ ... heets.aspx
Ok, that is a LOT of material, but it works out cheaper per sheet. You should be able to find plenty of suppliers online plus art shops in larger towns will have it as phohotgrphers and artists often use it to mount and preent photos and watercolour paintings.

_________________
Published ebooks:
Instrument of the Empire
A Note of Defiance
Phantom Ships, Ghost Flotilla
More to come!

Cardboard / carton might do the trick aswell...
Wipe a little PVA with a sturdy bristled brush over the 'glossy' side of the carton and let it harden out. The result is like woodgrains...

This is how I explained the trick in an article here on the site:

The shape of the door was cut out of the wall and a small piece of smooth (or glossy) cardboard was placed behind the hole. I drew the shape of the door on the cardboard to get an idea of how it would look.
To make the cardboard look like wood, I added a small amount of PVA over the complete width of the piece of card (on the smooth side).
[split][col][aimg]img4591435471970.jpg[/aimg][/col][col][aimg]img459143660531f.jpg[/aimg][/col][col][aimg]img459143775b103.jpg[/aimg][/col][/split]
With a brush with sturdy bristles, I wiped the PVA over the door to create the wooden look, to create the grain in the wood. Once dry it resembles the texture of wood.
Green stuff was used to sculpt bricks over the frame of the door.
[split][col][aimg]img4591438c7fb01.jpg[/aimg][/col][col][aimg]img459143aa1ad23.jpg[/aimg][/col][col][aimg]img459143bd09aaa.jpg[/aimg][/col][/split]


Painting it went like this:

First of all the door and frame were treated with PVA to get the wooden effect.
The first picture shows the result of the dried paint over the PVA layer. It gives a kinda crackled look, which gives an extra nice detail to make our wooden doors look really old and weathered.
For this door I mixed up Goblin Green with Shadow Grey for the basecoat.
A wash of watered down Scorched Brown with Chaos Black was applied over the door and filled the cracks with a dark brown colour. Once this was dry I drybrushed several tones of browns (mainly Graveyard Earth, Bestial Brown, Scorched Brown, ...) over the door until I came to this look.
The fram around the door was painted exactly like the other wooden frames I did before. A PVA-coat for the wood-trick, a basecoat of Graveyard Earth, a wash of Brown Ink and finished with watered down Chaos Black + Scorched Brown (this final wash also usually removes the glossy shine of the inks).
[split][col][aimg]img459259b038eb1.jpg[/aimg][/col][col][aimg]img459259c0278fd.jpg[/aimg][/col][col][aimg]img459259cda11e9.jpg[/aimg][/col][/split]


link to article of making a hobbit Brewery

And here's another article of Sam and Rosie's cava I did some time ago, using balsa wood...
link to Sam & Rosie's hobbit-hole

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CMON-gallery

oh nice.
great info there. thank you.

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It's all fun and games untill someone gets hurt.
Then it's a sport.

The reason Balsa is so expensive is it is not a native wood to either the UK or the USA. Have a look at some of the flying model aircraft sites and you might find it a bit cheaper.
http://www.mat.uc.pt/~pedro/ncientifico ... chbal.html

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www.ohmodels.co.uk - My buisness

Brilliant use of glue on the doors! it would never had occured to me to do that i'm going to try it!

I must make a hobbit hole!

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My Art portfolio:
http://www.sammystudio.co.uk

`I am looking forward to that. I have been following your other post. I like what you have done with your hobbit.

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"