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Rotatable wing stand

S

Sam Staton

Well Known Member
Making the big move soon - fuselage to the airport and bringing the wings home. I would like to be able to rotate the wings so I can work on them, but have not come across a wing stand I can build that will allow me to rotate the wings. Any help/ideas will be greatly appreciated - especially drawings!
 
Plywood is our friend

I made box/tower kind of stands out of plywood, 2 bys, and some cheapo harbor fright furniture dollies. I used 2" pvc pipe as an axle attached to the outboard rib and rested the inboard spar on a narrow V shaped cutout. This was a 6 with the long spar so you might have to rig an extension for shorter spars. I connected the 2 towers together with a long 2X4 so it would roll as a unit. I used them for storage, moving, and painting. I was able to roll the wing level to paint leading and trailing edges and then put it at about a 30 degree angle to paint the top and bottom skins. Once painted, I left the wings on the stands for curing and moved them to the airport for final assembly. It worked out better than it had any right to for such an impromptu kind of arrangement. Now my buddy has them for his project.

Ed Holyoke

Sam Staton said:
Making the big move soon - fuselage to the airport and bringing the wings home. I would like to be able to rotate the wings so I can work on them, but have not come across a wing stand I can build that will allow me to rotate the wings. Any help/ideas will be greatly appreciated - especially drawings!
Click to expand...
 
Adapted John's Rotisserie Kit

Sam Staton said:
Making the big move soon - fuselage to the airport and bringing the wings home. I would like to be able to rotate the wings so I can work on them, but have not come across a wing stand I can build that will allow me to rotate the wings. Any help/ideas will be greatly appreciated - especially drawings!
Click to expand...

I originally purchased a John's Rotisserie Kit for my -8 fuselage. Had an "ah ha!" moment, and ordered an extra pivot assembly for the tail stand. Fabricated a couple homemade brackets to attach the pivot assemblies to the wing spar ends, allowing for mounting & rotatinga wing. Easy change out of brackets to the original spec allow it to be used for rotating the fuselage when needed, and vice-versa.

Per this thread (http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=133675) John was coming out with a new version of the kit scheduled for February release, but no website or status update since then. :confused:

Can email pics if interested, just drop a PM. But it doesn't look like new rotisserie kits are available at the moment though. Hopefully John brings them back soon, perhaps with wing rotation incorporated in the new version.

Chris
 
Wing rotating stand

I used a 3 inch pic pipe that went through the Entire wing and placed it on two saw horses high enough to clear the floor, a second smaller pvc pipe to lock it in horizontal position as needed. Was a perfect working height for me. Cheap bit effective.
 
denbobp said:
I used a 3 inch pic pipe that went through the Entire wing and placed it on two saw horses high enough to clear the floor, a second smaller pvc pipe to lock it in horizontal position as needed. Was a perfect working height for me. Cheap bit effective.
Click to expand...

That is what I am doing to paint my wings before final assembly. I have a 5' piece stuck in each end since my wing is complete with all the wiring, servos, and all the other crapola that gets in the way!
 
PVC

denbobp said:
I used a 3 inch pic pipe that went through the Entire wing and placed it on two saw horses high enough to clear the floor, a second smaller pvc pipe to lock it in horizontal position as needed. Was a perfect working height for me. Cheap bit effective.
Click to expand...

I have similar. 4"X10' PVC sewer pipe. 2"x4"x12' inserted into the pipe. The ends stick out a foot on either end and rest on sawhorses. Control surfaces, servo and bellcranks were removed prior for Alodine.
I am Alodining the entire airframe exterior. When she's through Phase 1, I plan to vinyl wrap.
 
HUM---how about 2 Harbor Freight engine stands, and mount a fixture between them? Its tall enough to do this, and you can take it apart for storage.

Tom

HI SAM!!
 
The problem with using engine stands is that they angle the "engine" at an up angle from the stand so using 2 would be difficult to get them to work together. I ran into this on my fuselage when the nose was attached to the stand, the tail was way up in the air at the stand's natural angle. I had to modify the stand's feet lower to get the angle somewhat parallel to the ground and the tail at a workable height but still able to be rotated.
 
It is true that engine stands angle upwards. I fixed this by simply changing the casters to different sizes to more or less level the stand.

I didn't do this for the wings but I used one engine stand at the front of the fuselage and at the rear I made a simple sling to allow the fuselage to rotate.

What ever you end up doing I will say the ability to rotate the section you are working on simplifies working on it by a factor of 10.
 
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