a good balsa wood striper

[woundedbear]

Thanks for all of the good advice guys! I ordered my Master Airscrew today got it off eBay for 9 dollars and 38 cents total.

[pedwards2932]

Just tried this to see if it would work. I set my craft cutter up for cutting 1/8 by 1/16 strips. This was cut on fairly hard balsa so I can use them for stringers. I can keep them on the sheet and just cut them free as needed. Next I am going to try 1/16 square. I have included a picture of the sheet and one stringer pulled measuring on either end and it looks like it is within tolerances which will work for me. Once cut file is done it takes about 5 minutes to cut these strips (3 passes)

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[woundedbear]

Well, my Master Airscrews balsa wood stripper arrived in the mail Friday. Seems like manufacturing this tool has been outsourced to China. No big surprise here, I guess they will start outsourcing tobacco to China soon I can remember when the textile factories here in North Carolina were running three shifts And there were some real good jobs in the furniture industry too. Now all of these one stop light towns here in Carolina are dead. But this is politics and this is a model airplane forum so I'll stop with their sending all of the jobs to China rant The balsa wood stripper I got had to be fine tuned and I had to do a lot of sanding to get it to work properly. It looks like a guy could buy a well-made tool. I have seen some nice balsa wood stripping tools for sale on some of the Brittish mail order websites but they never responded to my emails so I guess they don't sell to Americans Some outfit called A to Z had copies of the old Jim Jone's stripping tool but it looks like they went belly up

[NcGunny]

Just be careful with the blade retention screws. Dont go over tightening them, i received my spare stripper and its identical to the one I have now. So far though its been trouble free.

[Xanadu]

I agree with the majority, Master Airscrew stripper. Works very well, and while your ordering that, get the small razor plane as well. One of the betters tools I ever bought as well.

[Red Plastic Prop]

If you are trying to strip small peanut scale wood such as 1/20, you might consider one like I made. I tried with X-Acto 11 blades and razor blades but for that thin a size it was hard to get a strip of any consistent quality, thickness-wise. As most of my solutions, it was at 99 cents only store. Buy a 5 -pack of disposable double or triple edge razors. Be careful, and bust the head up very gingerly and extract the blades . They are about as thin as foil. and have two or three 3mm holes already punched in them. I X-Acto sawed a slit 1/16" in the end of a small block of Tupelo, and used a piece of basswood as the fence and made a 10 or 11 nice strips that didn't look like they were split with a wood maul. use a appropriate size spacer and secure the blade thru one of the holes to the fence leaning torward the sheet [not strip]side. Lean it back no more than 60 degrees. Any more just stresses the thin blade. When you get a nice workable stripper, go back and get 3 or 4 packs ofthe same brand blades and you'll have a lifetime supply. Paint it lime green so you won't sweep it in the trash can. It happens.