Stock Info?

[m1fan]

Is it just me or are there a lot of model kits on the Guillows website that say, "Sorry, temporarily out of stock?" Is there some sort of balsa or plastic shortage - what's going on? Thanks!

[kittyfritters]

Yes, there is a world wide balsa shortage, at least for model airplanes. There are three things that are soaking up the balsa supply, wind turbines, natural gas tankers, and laminated flooring.

Many of the wind turbine designs use balsa cores for the blades. You would think that they could use Styrofoam but balsa is. apparently, the preferred material.

Massive amounts of balsa are used for the collision buffers in natural gas tankers. You would be astonished by how much force can be absorbed by a mass of end grain balsa. This was a problem about twenty years ago but enough LNG tankers were built that the need for them was covered and we could get good balsa again. Climate change, however, has opened the Northeast Passage (above Siberia) to shipping for most of the year and the Russians want to make money from their vast natural gas reserves. The Chinese and the Koreans are in a race to build LNG tankers because they both want to dominate the supply of natural gas to Asia. One LNG tanker probably uses as much balsa as all the model airplanes that have ever been built.

Balsa is used as the shock absorbing layer in many brands of laminated flooring.

Lately, supplying balsa for model airplanes has been an afterthought. All of the companies that mill balsa for model airplanes (Guillow has been milling their own wood for about 5 years now.) are having a tough time getting a supply of good wood.

At least, that's what I have been able to find out.

KF

[m1fan]

So nothing official from Guillows? Does anyone from the company ever answer questions here?

[Kaintuck]

I’m so old, I Remember abundant supplies of balsa AND spruce.....spruce was said to go bye bye to japan to make musical instruments.....I guess I’d better find a way of building with dried cow pies...
Marc

[kittyfritters]

This is just temporary. We aren't going to have to go back to pine and cardboard as in WWII although that does work. (Yes, old Joe Ott kits CAN fly!) However, I have been doing some research into alternative materials. (This is me, not Guillow although I'm sure they have thought about it also.) Foam is obvious, but with environmental pressures may be something of a dead end. In production foam does not make use of some of the current tooling for balsa kits which is also a consideration. There are some more environmentally friendly composition materials that don't require changes in production or building techniques that show promise. I'll keep you appraised of developments.

KF

[jackschenck2014]

m1fan, yes they do respond to messages. they have responded to me several times over the last couple years on kit issues.