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AlexDeKuang wrote:What did you use to keep the wood bent around the form to dry?

stringman wrote:Where do you buy you wood that you use to make the tube?

Azn wrote:

AlexDeKuang wrote:What did you use to keep the wood bent around the form to dry?

I used small rubber bands at first, but these left an impression on the wood. An improved method I used was to actually wrap everything in a layer of tissue paper and secure it with masking tape (not exactly sure how I got this to work since everything would have been wet, I probably dabbed the sheets dry a bit before wrapping). There are probably more effective construction methods out there, but this seemed to do the trick

klastyioer wrote:

stringman wrote:Where do you buy you wood that you use to make the tube?

just find some nice 1/16 sheets online at your balsa supplier

Azn wrote:I experimented a bit with the tube design when I was a senior back in 2014. I used a solid 'plug' for the distal end that was sanded down to fit inside the tube by ~1/4 inch. The tension members were attached to the plug, which also featured a hole for the loading block assembly. Initial testing of this design yielded scores upwards of 1800 (booms just under 6g breaking around 10-11kg). These scores definitely could have been improved upon, but in the end I gave up on this design because it was too challenging for me to reproduce tube designs with high consistency (too risky for me).

I used 1/32 thick sheets for the tubes (I believe ~5/8" diameter but its hard to remember), and 1/16 bass for tensions. These pictures should pretty much explain of how the plugs were built.