Limited shop ceiling tricks

Gents
My workshop space, although very comfortable, warm and handy to the coffee, has a low ceiling height. I'm working in a basement with a wide walkout door, and the ceiling is roughly 7 1/2 feet.
I'm interested in fixtures made to lower the fuselage working height with the gear removed. There must be some clever setups that are simple but effective. My biggest concern is being able to build the doors with the full up travel.

Thanks

One thing that comes to mind will be the inconvenience of the amount of times the cabin top will go on, and off, and on and off to get it to fit right, and for other cabin top finishing tasks.

To get around this, I was thinking your low profile fuselage cradle could be built will large caster wheels to roll out of your basement and do all the fitting outside. It is cold up where you are, but maybe you could try to time this part of the build and the doors for summer time. Then after the doors are fitted, unbolt them and set them aside.

http://www.showplanes.com/cms-display/projects.html

Look through the RV 10 albums, there is a great roll around cradle that can be adjusted in height. As far as I know, this is a one off, but the photos will tell you a lot about how to make your own.

I was also worried that the doors wouldn't open all the way since most of our shop only has an 8' ceiling with fluorescent lights that hang down from there. I was surprised to find I had a fair amount of room between the fully open door and the ceiling, with the fuselage on a pretty standard cradle made from 2x6's and casters. I can check on exact dimensions when we get back in a few days (on the road at the moment) but I think unless you built an unusually high cradle you actually should be alright on clearance (I can still easily work under my fuse with a creeper too).

If you attach the emp that might be another story though. I lucked out with ours, only had about 1/2" or maybe 1" clearance between the top of the rudder and the ceiling.

Let me know if you want some measurements and I can get back to you with that. Good luck!

I used this


http://www.harborfreight.com/1000-lb-capacity-motorcycle-lift-68892.html

I was not particularly short on ceiling height but was looking for a very convenient way to raise and lower the fuselage during the build.
You can sell the lift when you are done but for me it has become the preferred maintenance table.
It moves quite easily on its casters but securely sits on the floor with the jack screws engaged.
I had the fuselage almost down to floor level for the cabin top installation.

Switch to building a taildragger?

I am building an 8 but I would guess the 10 is similar.
When I received my QB fuselage it had a stack up of plywood stubs bolted in to the center section like very short wing spars. There were three bolts per side and the stack up is as wide as the wing spar so it is plenty stout. I put a wood platform on top of a milk crate to evenly spread the load and placed the wood wing "spars" on them. The tail is on a low saw horse at the tail wheel mount. The cockpit portion of the fuselage is about a foot off the ground and so far has worked fine for construction inside the fuselage. Mine looks about as high off the ground as a couple of the Showplanes pictures.