Van’s Aircraft had sent a letter stating that my wings would ship the week of August 17th.  August 17th is a Saturday.  Who says the week of and refers to a Saturday?  I was confused… did they mean the week ending on the 17th, or was it a mistake and they meant the next week?  So before heading out to the shop I gave them a call.  Turns out it was a typo and they meant the week of the 19th.  They said items usually ship by Thursday  (August 27) and take 5 to 6 working days for Pennsylvania.  That means my wings should arrive sometime between the 28th and the 30th of this month.  I also let Barbara at Van’s know that I intended to pick the crates up at the local terminal and would not need door service.  She will call me when she’s ready to pick a shipping company.  This should save me some money.

Back to the shop. Tonight I finished the wing stand frames.  I will wait until I’m ready to hang the wings before installing the aluminum angle supports. This was a collosal pain in the ass to do by myself.  I had to clamp, level, adjust and drill while on a ladder… a second set of hands would have made this far easier and quicker, but its done now.

Here you can see the far side that is under the stairs.  There is still plenty of room to walk (especially for a short guy such as myself).  

There is enough room to open the garage door… just barely.  I moved the work benches over by the garage door. 

Here is the only post that didn’t line up with a floor joyce.  

My make shift garage door stop.  The last thing I need is to throw the garage door open and bang into the wing stand.  Who knows what catastrophe that might cause…

Panorama of the completed stands.

I started building the wing stand this evening. Using deck screws I joined two 2x4s for each vertical leg instead of using 4X4s.

In the first photo I’m just playing around with the placement and clearance of the vertical supports.  I have to ensure that the garage door clears, and I wanted to center the stand on the lights. I’ve got plenty of room in my garage, so I spaced the two sides further apart then most people.  There are 30 inches between the uprights, which will give me plenty of room to work from either side. 

Here you can see how I’m planning to affix the bottom to the floor.  I’ve screwed a 2×4 across the bottom of the two legs.  That 2×4 will be attached with 2 screws into the concrete and some light adhesive. On the opposite end, I will have to trim the one vertical leg because of clearance issues with the stairs. I didn’t want to put a 2×4 across, because I don’t want to trip on it, but doing it this way is so easy and will ensure the stand is very stable.  Once I have that done, I’m going to mark all the positions on the floor, and then set about attaching the supports to the ceiling. I’m not going to install the aluminum angle supports until I’m ready to hang the wing.  This will hopefully allow the wood to dry and allow the stand to settle in place. It will also give me the opportunity to make any final adjustments to the leveling and spacing with the spars in hand. 

It was time this weekend for another garage reorganization.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take a before picture.  The back wall was cluttered with junk and had two large storage cabinets.  I cleared the area out completely for some shelves. This evening, I bought shelving for storing the wing parts. I’ll still need more small containers, but I’ll get those at harbor freight. I also bought 2x4s and aluminum angle for the wing stand and some self etching rattle can primer for the one off items.

I’m going to double up on the 2x4s rather than buy 4x4s. Simply because its cheaper. I measured the wing stand clearance between the raised garage door and the stairs, and I have enough room. The wings will be here later this month, so I need to finish the trim tab and the list of misc chores quickly!

Here are the shelving units. 

Nine 2x4x10s, rattle can self etching primer and aluminum angle.