Armed with a fresh sheet of balsa and my trusty balsa stripper, I have just finished making up one heck of a pile of ties. The process couldn’t be simpler. I’m starting with balsa sheet. Instead of cutting individual ties to length, I find it easier to cut the sheet to length, matching the length of my ties. I can then rip these into individual ties using the balsa stripper. Since the tool manages the width of each tie, the only really careful work is dividing the sheet by length. In all, I find it relaxing work. I figure I cut about a thousand ties this evening and this brings me another step closer to getting some track in place.