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Wing Skin Crate as Fuselage Cart?

1001001

Well Known Member
I can't be the first person to think of this, but I can't find anyone else who's done it. Maybe it won't work?

I was reconfiguring my shop today in anticipation of mating the forward and mid fuselage pieces, thinking of what I'm going to use for a fuselage stand while I work on the side skins and other internals.

Doing all that had me moving the wings and their cart out of the shop area into the barn, and I had to get the wing skin crate out of the way, since I never broke it down. It's 31.5" x 104". I'm thinking it would make a good fuselage stand, maybe just mount some corner reinforcements on the open top, invert it, and install casters on the corners. Then I can configure the bottom (now top) any number of ways to hold the fuselage.

Any problems with this idea? The crate is not nearly as wide as the fuselage, but has plent of bearing area and the fuse should be stable on it.
 
No issues, I did it

I’m pretty sure I cut the crate in half and nailed them together side by side with a board on top. It was plenty long and I left the wood over hang the edge a bit so I could clamp things as required. The inside parts of the crate where I cut needed to be reinforced for casters from harbor freight.
 
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One picture shows what I built. The other shows the fuselage propped up on it so we could rivet the bottom. My wife just sat behind it and it was super easy to rivet. Then we put a piece of carpet down and laid it down and built on. It was on this table until the very end.
 

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Thanks, Nick! I knew I couldn't be the first. Looks like you used the spar box for the base, and maybe the skin box for the table against the windows.
 
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