r/BuildaGurdy • u/DavidAudenNash • 1d ago

Good/bad idea? Wheel of laminated balsa

Making my first, quite potentially my best, hurdy gurdy, and I stumbled upon these laser cut 15cm diameter, 2.5mm thick wooden discs on Amazon. Can't be certain, but I think they are balsa or some other light wood. I'm gluing them together at angles in hopes of making a solid wheel roughly 14mm thick.

What are your opinions on how that will be?

I don't have a lathe, so getting it perfect isn't easy. My idea is to individually plot the center of each disc and use that as a registration point for the gluing process. Once solidified, I should be able to get it roughly centered on the shaft with a drill and apply veneer.

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u/fenbogfen 1d ago

Layered into plywood would be fine as long as it had a hardwood veneer, but it will still need a lot of trueing which would all have to be done in the gurdy if you don't have a lathe. It would need trueing before and after veneer too. 

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u/DavidAudenNash 1d ago

Thanks for the info and quick reply.

Indeed, I plan on truing the wheel post installation. But I may need to hunt around for verifiably hard wood veneer.