1.0 Hours -

The ongoing saga of my wing stand construction continues.  I’ve now attached the aluminum angle and associated leveling hardware to two of the wood columns.  The mechanism worked great as they were easy to level.  However, I’ll wait to complete the other two stands until I’m ready to use them.  The reason for this is that our garage floor is so unlevel that I will have to decide where I will build the wings, set up the stands there and not move them from that position.  From my initial measurement, the slope of the garage floor may require one end of the stand to be an inch lower than the other end.  Once the wing kit arrives, I’ll use the actual spar to make sure the second stands can keep the spar level.

The finished product. As you can see, the leveling system works perfectly.

3.0 Hours -

I’ve been working on my wing stands off and on over the last few days.  The more I work on them, the more I think I’m probably going overboard on their design.  However, I made my plan and started building them, so I’m sticking to the design.

The concern comes from the threaded rods I’m going to use to hold the aluminum angle where the spar will attach.  These rods will allow me to level the angle and, thus, the spar.  However, I could also do this simply by drilling a second hole through the angle and using two bolts through the angle/wood column.  My system is making it more complicated than it probably needs to be.  On the other hand, my garage floor is so unlevel, that the threaded rod may work in my favor if I need to move the wing stands at some point mid-construction.

Concerns aside, I’ve finished the wood portions of all four stands, and I’ve also finished fabricating all of  the aluminum parts that will be used for attaching the spars to the stands.  My fabricated parts will get the job done, but I’m putting no effort into making them look pretty.  Probably a good thing I’m not trying to build the plane from plans!

The wood portions of the wing stands are completely finished.

All the metal components of the wing stands have been and finished. The camera made the rods look bent, but they are not.

This is how the metal components will be assembled on the final stands. The long piece of angle at the top will hold the wing's spar and be attached to the wood column with a 3/8" bolt. The threaded rod will allow me to make fine adjustments on each stand.

A close up of how the rod will attach to the long piece of angle.

A close up of how the rod will attach to the wood column. A 3/8" bolt will go through the hole on the right and through the wood column.

1.0 Hours -

More wing stand construction this evening.  Two down, two to go.  However, I’ve diminished my scrap plywood supply, so construction is at a halt until I make a Lowe’s/Home Depot run.

No pictures since this is the same as in my previous post on the wing stands.

2.0 Hours -

The work in this post actually occurred in short spurts over a couple of days, but I’m lumping it together.

With the bases cut and the columns glued and screwed, I was ready to put them together.  However, I wasn’t happy with the tops of three of the columns being uneven.  Granted, the tops being uneven doesn’t even matter, but for appearance sake, I wanted to even them out.  After all, when I’m done with the stands, I plan to give them to another builder and I don’t want them to think my work was sloppy!

To even out the stands, I just ran them through my band saw.  Due to their length, I couldn’t balance them on the band saw table by myself, so I convinced my girlfriend, Amber, to hold one end of the column up while I cut the other.

Once the columns were even, I started attaching them to the bases.  This was relatively simple, and I had all of the bases attached within 45 minutes.

Attaching the bases to the columns was a bit of a stretch. Please ignore my gut hanging out!

The basic stands are done. Now they just need to be reinforced.

Finally, I started working on the reinforcements on the base of one stand.  After about an hour, I had the first stand completed.  One thing is for certain…these stands will be sturdy.  Based on the first stand, they should have no problem supporting the wings.  Building the rest of the stands should go more quickly now that I’ve got it figured out (more or less). 

This is the first complete stand...at least the wood portions are done.

For comparison, a finished stand next to an unfinished one.

1.0 Hours -

With the empennage done (essentially) and the wings on order, I decided to start building my wing stands even though it will be several months before I need them.  Searching the internet, I found many different designs.  However, I needed a stand that would not need to be bolted/screwed into the ceiling or floor of the garage as our landlord probably wouldn’t be too happy about that!  I also didn’t want to go too overboard on the design since this is only a construction stand…not a jig.  In the end, I morphed a couple of designs together.  While I would like to say it is unique, I’m sure someone else has built the exact stand in the past.  Below is a drawing I made in Google Sketchup.  If anyone wants the actual Sketchup file with dimensions, leave a comment and I’ll email it too you.

This is a drawing of my wingstand that I did in Google Sketchup. I'll make four of these.

The base of the stand is 3/4” plywood, while the column is made by gluing and screwing two 2”x6”x60” planks together.  Additional column supports are made out of 2×4 sections and plywood or MDF triangles.  The bracket that holds the wing spar will be made out of a section of aluminum angle.  I’ll probably just reuse the angle that I used to make the rudder trailing edge.  The angle will be supported by a threaded rod (not drawn into the picture) that will join the angle to the column.  The rod will be adjustable so that the angle can be leveled.  Two stands will be needed for each wing.  While I’m not sure if I will build the wings simultaneously or one at a time,  I’m building a total of 4 stands.

Today, I got as far as cutting the bases and planks to size.  I also glued and screwed the columns together.

The wing stand columns are made out of a 2"x6"x10' that is cut in half, then glued and screwed together.

The grain is lined up so that any warping should be opposite on each board...supposedly this will keep them straight.

It's not attached to the plyboard yet, but it looks like a wing stand.