B

Bruinpilot

Member
I am currently considering home building and the rv 7 is high in the running. I was just curious if anyone had any input here. I am wondering about how much of the build can be completed in a small 2 car garage/shop before I would have to get a hangar to finish up. Thanks for the input.
 
You can do a complete build and complete assembly in a two car garage with no problems unless your wife has claimed ownership of it.
 
Small Space, No Problem

There are lot of interesting threads and stories of builders making creative use of small spaces. I myself have been building the last three years in the downstairs bedroom of my townhouse. That was empennage and wings. Now that I have started on the fuselage I will need to move into the garage, but even then, I plan on using only one car's worth of the two car garage. As I understand it, you only need to move to the airport when you are ready to final install wings. That's pretty far along in the build (guessing 90%+).

Build on!

EDIT: Welcome to VAF!!
 
Last edited:
I have heard that the time of build is directly correlated to the distance of the person to the project.

Hasn't been quite true for me, but it certainly helps me see what I am missing easier.
 
The more space you have, the better of course. If you have a 2-car garage you should have plenty of room for building. We have a 3-car garage, but my wife is using one stall and some of the third is bikes, motorcycle, mower, etc. I'm using about 1-1/3 stalls for building.

I rented a 10x12' climate controlled storage bay to store the completed parts - right now the wings and tail are there, along with a bunch of stuff I had to move out of the garage to make room for building.
 
Must be nice!

I have a 1 1/2 car garage and would love to have the space of a 2 car. Lot's of room! Once the wings were done, they went to a friends hanger, but even with the wings in the garage, I could still manage.

Go for it!


Don
 
Easy

I built my RV-10 (A lot larger than a 7) in my garage.
Took it out side on the driveway to fit the wings and tail, then took them off and moved it back in.

I did almost everything I could in the garage, including paint.
Moved it to the airport, and it took 1 week to DAR inspection, then 1 more week before first flight. I did take off from work the first week it was at the airport. About 80 hours of work from moving to the airport until first flight.
 
The small 2 car garage will be fine. That is where I did my first build. But our current ~4 car garage (that a car has never seen the inside of) is obviously mo' better.
 
I was able to complete the tail and wings entirely while my wife was still using her half of the garage. It wasn't until I started on the fuselage that we had to "renegotiate" parking arrangements.
 
Its big enough. That said the project will expand to utilize all available space. Bigger is better but we all knew that already.
 
I'm building in a small 1 car garage and it can become space challenging and frustrating at times.

Empennage was easy, one wing at a time was a little bit more challenging and the fuselage now is somewhat frustrating mostly due to lenght considerations.

But I believe it's possible... ;-)

My empennage and wings are in a storage facility of course...
 
I was in the same situation over a year ago. I stopped building my RV to build a house, dreaming of a bigger garage. I have my big garage but I haven't been able to continue building. Building the house turned into one of those nightmare. Had to fire the builder, etc? I have been so busy finishing up this project that the RV had to be put on the back burner.
Anyway, I am hoping to be working on the RV in the near future. Hope I remember how to.

Good luck !!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.