[Bookmaker]

From several decades of working with model airplanes, let me share my experience. Uncovered balsa skins (especially when bent) have a nasty habit of splitting with the grain. I don't know if it's Florida humidity, heat or what, but I have seen it numerous times. I am personally very reluctant to finish balsa without some form of cover, be it silkspan, silk, fiberglas, etc. Even Monocote covered balsa sheet will split.

I am currently in the process of finishing a Balsa USA Fokker D VIII that uses balsa for the wing cover. My plan is to glass it with light weight glass cloth stuck down with thinned epoxy, then primer to fill the weave. Then I plan to use the furniture "antiquing" method to fake plywood grain before the final staining finish. I think this would be a possibility on the Albatros fuse as well.

Dale