[RV7Factory]

I am getting ready to build my wing jig and I was hoping to gather some advice.

I have decided to build the both wings at a once and I have decided on a four post jig so that I can walk between the wings without having to crawl around or under a jig post. The four post design is also necessary for other reasons which I won't bore you with here.

My question is, how much space do you think I should plan for between the wing panels? My limitation is that the overall width of both wings in the jig has to fit in a space roughly 9' wide and still allow enough room on all sides of the wings to work. My current design has an 18" space between the vertical beams at each end, which results in a 25" distance between the bottoms of the wings.... do you think is that enough space between the wings to work within, or should I go wider at the expense of the available space on the outside?

TIA!

 

[Wills_9A]

Mine are 36" apart at the attachment points for the spars. Seems to have been plenty of room and I built it in one half of one of these new style tiny garages. There are several pics of various other jigs on my site if that is any help.

http://wills-rv9a.com/My_Homepage_Files/Page6.html

 

[alpinelakespilot2000]

Mine too are 36" from wing skin to wing skin. (It was 36" by coincidece, though Will did give me some other great ideas for the fixture). I think this is the ideal minimum distance since it gave me room to get a wheeled desk chair in between the wings... a life-saver when doing all the deburring and dimpling! I do think you need AT LEAST 24" on each side of the wing at a minimum. You'll be very uncomfortable without that much room.

Also, one other suggestion: make sure that you put the wings on the outside of the posts (or in line with the posts as Will did) with the top of the wings on the outside (farthest from the post) and bottoms inside (closest to the post). If you don't do this, it makes clamping the rear spar more difficult.

One other thought... if you are as space challenged as you indicate, my vote would be to do one wing at a time. I was all fired up about doing both at once too, but now after being almost done with both, I don't think I saved any time by doing it that way. Quality would be at least as good if you build them separately, because having time between each wing would give you more time to find better solutions to things that didn't work so well the first time. Besides, it breaks up some of the boring parts of the job.

Good luck.

 

[Captain_John]

I went 48" between because I had the room.

Check out this thread I whipped up the last time this question came up.

Wing Jig Details

Hope it helps!

CJ

 

[RScott]

I have space concerns, so I put my jigs on casters & move them around as needed. Haven't finished the wings yet, so I don't know if there will be a problem, but so far it works for me and another -9 builder did it & had no problems. Only works with prepunched. Also, stay away from the casters at Home Depot, they don't swivel worth beans.

Richard Scott
-9A Wings