Building the Wing Cradle - FINALLY!

With the space in the garage taken care of, I now need to make some fixtures that are long overdue for my build. The first is the Wing Cradle, and the second is the leading edge/fuel tank stand. I will be picking up the metal wing stands from Aaron on Saturday, so hopefully I can get the wing cradle done before then. A quick note about the fixtures. Sometimes folks intermix the terms cradle and stand, as well as the word "jig." Just to clear some things up, The wing stand or jig is simply the two posts with some angle iron supports to mount the wing spar so that the wing skins can be attached to the ribs as easily as possible. The wings are built vertically as though they are climbing straight up vertically. So the words "stand" and "jig" are used interchangeably. The wing cradle, on the other hand, is a fixture that will store the completed wings once they are finished. The cradle stores each wing on the opposite position from the wing stand, or with the leading edge of each wing facing straight down. The cradle is what I am working on now.

Before I show the pics, I just want to extend a shout out to my friend and fellow RV8 builder Steve Riffe who has some great pics of his wing cradle at the very begining of his Wings section of his builders log. Without his pics I might have had to call Vans to figure out how the hell to make it since their plans for this are less than adequate IMHO.

First step was a trip to the local airplane store (Home Depot) to buy a bunch of wood and some hardware.

Shopping list for the cradle:
5 each 2x4x8s
1 each 1x6x8
3 each 1x3x8s (these are actually for the frame for my newest priming table from the cardboard box that my recently installed screen door came in).

Assortment of 1 1/4, 2, 2.5, and 3 inch deck screws.

Additional items already in house:

2 particle board panels 2 foot x 3 foot - After removing the doors from my 2x4 foot storage shelf, I noted that the dimensions of the doors are about 2 feet wide x 5/8" thick x 6.5 feet tall. You need 2 separate 3 foot x 2 foot panels, one on each end of the cradle, to support the wings on both ends. One panel has notches cut in it to support the wing spar at the root of each wing, and the other panel has cutouts for the leading edge of each wing.

A set of casters to allow the cradle to be moved around as needed. I plan on using the 4 sets of furniture dollies I used to support the Wing kit crates until I was able to purge them and store all the wing parts elsewhere.

The shelf doors will serve quite well as the panels on either side of the cradle. the doors are 2 feet wide. The leading edge ribs on each wing extend out from the spar about 17.5 inches, and the 2 foot width allows enough space for that as well as the space required for the supports on the bottom of each panel for strength. One note about Vans Plans for all this. They are contained in DWG 12A. Mpst of the drawings are labled as being 1/12 scale, but I found that one of the drawings that specifically mentions the height of each panel does not seem to be drawn at 1/12 scale at all. This becomes misleading, and like so many other areas in the plans, is also entirely inaccurate. I wish they would fix some of these things....Nothing new....

Here are the door panels that I cut down to size for the wing cradle. Note the two leading edge ribs. These are the end ribs for each wing, W709 right and left. They are used to draw the initial template for the cutouts on one of the panels:

The above pic shows the orientation of the wings as they will sit inside the cradle - the upper part of each wing will face inward to each other, adn the bottom parts of each wing will face outward. The wide part of each rib is where they will attach to the wing spar, and cutouts will be made pretty much as shown in the pic, with the wide end of each rib at the top of the panel. I may try ot make them a little deeper to allow the wing spar flanges to be supported by the sides of the panel so that the stress is placed partly on the wing spar and not solely on the leading edge ribs.

Next is measuring and setting up the fence to cut each door panel to the correct size. I used my circular saw for this.

And here are the finished panels after the cut. The holes that you see are recessed holes that were in the doors to support the hinges thart came with the shelving unit. These will be covered with 2x4 or other support wood frames when the cradle is complete so I am not cerned about these extra holes being there:

There are 2 sets of 3 foot long 2x4s at the bottom of each panel. This is part of Steve's cradle design and is not what is drawn on Vans plans. I happen to like Steve's design and so I plan to copy it.

And finally a shot of some of my Xmas booty I acquired for the build. I received a set of 4 books written by a well respected EAA member by the name of Tony Bengelis. This ought to keep me busy for a good long while. His books are easy to read and contain a wealth of great tips and trickes and information for all aspects of building an airplane. Worth every penny.

The other plier-looking item is an automatic wire stripper from Ideal, part 45-097, which contains the dies for most of the wire sizes I will be using for the airplane, including the 26 gauge wire for the trim servo. After agonizing over this for quite a while I was able to track down the right part number and set of dies that will handle the small 26 gauge wire of the trim servo wire bundle. Now I can add the extension to that wire bundle with confidence that I will not be removing any strands of wire when they are stripped. I also recieved a spare set of dies: