On May 7, 12:21*pm, cavelamb himself wrote:

What was it you used on your Flyer, Harry?

Richard


I used sitka spruce for most of it because that's the closest that I
could find to the Chanute specs and it was my best guess for an
alternate. Keeping in mind of course that only about 1/2 of a Wright
glider was spruce. The other 1/2 was white ash. Just about any part
with a bend in it - ribs, landing skids, wingtip bows, canard leading
& trailing edges, were either steam-bent ash, or were laminated from
ash. By the way, steam-bending is 90 times harder than it looks and
127 times more time-consuming.

Supposedly, Ken Hyde of "The Wright Experience" actually used West
Virginia silver spruce for his machines. Theyway I heard it, and this
is NOT a verified fact, he found someone with a tree, had it cut &
milled, etc. His wood did look a little different from mine, but that
have been from the finish his people used. "The Wright Experience" was
funded by Ford (yeah, that Ford), several other major corps., and
Harry Combs. SUPER DEEP pockets folks. They spent millions building
what cost me a few thousand.

Admittedly, I did have to interpret a few parts and materials for my
machine just because the original materials weren't available for less
than millions, or there simply wasn't any info. available for a
particular part. But I can document my plane to 95% accuracy.

Harry