| One of the most satisfying aspects of building your own
plane is the overcoming of challenges that will seemingly arise at every turn. I had developed a neat little turning jig but couldn't turn the fuselage in the garage because of the height of the tail and width of the horizontal stabilizer. The main spars would also hit the ground during the turning process. Add to that the overall length was a problem with my garage and a new challenge was at hand. I decided I needed to be able to move the fuselage out of the garage to accomplish the turn. I also wanted to reverse the direction to allow more working room. Below are photos showing my crude but very workable solutions. |
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The solution was two carts with ends constructed to hold my turning jigs. Each cart is a 2' by 4' wooden form with a 3/4 inch top and large castering lockable wheels. This allows the carts to be locked in place or moved in any direction. When placed as shown they only take a couple of inches of space beyond the length of the fuselage. |
| I knew the fuselage would need to be raised quite a bit to clear the main spar as well as the vertical and horizontal stabilizer. The jigs were designed to be jacked up, locked in place and lowered when needed. The photo above shows how much the tail needed to be raised. I used a wide board and a cushion from some lawn chairs to pad the contact with the fuselage and spread the load.
PS: I placed a few sand bags on the carts when |
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| When not rotating the Fuselage, the two 2x4's seen in the
photos above and below are used to tie the two carts together so they move as one unit. When the wheels are not locked, the unit can easily be moved around by one person. In fact, the entire turning operation was performed by myself with my wife watching for clearance problems. The great part is that once the plane in on the gear the carts and jigs will work equally well for handling the wings. They were also both cheap and quite easy to construct. I can also see many long term uses for them. |
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