OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Is there a place online I can buy a 12 mm thick balsa (and other table tennis veneers in general) ? The huge problem is that they come in 4 mm width with most online or local dealers & I do not want to join two pieces (4mm plus 4 mm) for the width.
I also do not want to join two pieces of 6 mm for 12mm thickness. Is there aplace that sell them ?

If not balsa I would even consider other core wood types as well

You can try this place, though they do note that any sheet over 4" wide are jointed/glued separate pieces (although it should be factory planed so its level and flush; i.e. not having to do that yourself.)

https://www.nationalbalsa.com/products/ ... 025f&_ss=c

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Russian craftsmen prefer kiri timber to balsa.

?? 4mm width???

Balsawood is sold in two types of shops - model airplane supply ("hobby") shops and artist supply shops (people use balsa for making architectural models because it comes in easily cut and sanded sheets). Not sure what you're referring to above - you should easily be able to obtain sheets of up to 12.5mm thickness (i.e. 1/2 inch) and 3 inches (or 75mm) width, though 4 inch/100mm wide sheets are also available. Why 3 or 4 inches wide? Because balsa is exported as standard billets of 3 or 4 inches in width and either 3 feet or 4 feet in length, and companies that import the balsa will slice it into sheets ranging from 1/32 inch (0.8mm) to 1 inch in thickness. You CAN get wider sheets (6 inches should be right for making blades) but you should be aware that these wider sheets are made by gluing together billets, which are sawn to thickness. There is nothing in the rules that say you can't edge-glue sheets together to make wider sheets - in fact it's done in all the major factories that make blades, and not just with balsa. There were photos on Yinhe's factory web site of the machine they used for edge-gluing veneers (they used a hot melt glue for this). Anyhow... if you live in Europe I'd say try a hobby store (Graupner is a big brand), if in Britain, likewise (I believe Solarbo is still in operation). In the US? Several mail order sources, including SIG, National Balsa and Balsa USA. In Australia, they get balsa grown in plantations in Papua New Guinea (in the US and Europe they use Ecuadorean wood) and there are several online retailers including Balsa Central. You can also buy balsa sheets off AliExpress - this comes from China, I think they mainly ship Papua New Guinea wood (be prepared to pay through the nose for shipping, though - it's bulky stuff). These balsa suppliers can also supply other woods - basswood, paulownia, and very thin birch aircraft plywood (as thin as 0.4mm) that you can use for blademaking.

Again, ignore Igor. he likes to post irrelevant stuff. Who cares what some people in Russia like.

Iskandar