Got My Metal Wing Stands Today!

I made a trek up north to fellow RV-8 builder Aaron Miller to meet him and his Dad, Ron Miller to pick up my all metal wing stands. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got there, since I don't really know the first thing about wht it takes to weld things together. All I say is that I learned an awful lot about welding today, and aside from the garage being about as cold as mine is right now, it was an extremely educational experience.

This is a personal shout out to Aaron and his Dad Ron with a sincere THANK YOU for taking the time (turned out to be about 5 hours total) to weld my wing stands together. Ron even let me dawn all the welding gear and taught me how to weld the last two seams on my wing stands. Here is a shot of Ron hard at work:

I learned that Ron and his wife are devout tool people, especially when it comes to welding gear. Ron used a process called MIG welding. No, I am not going to try to dig out all my Airventure welding forum material from a couple of years ago to explain what all the different welding acronyms mean. What I can tell you is that he plugged this MIG welder into a 9000 watt capacity generator, and a grounding clamp was attached to the metal being worked so that when the welding tip was engaged (trigger pressed) a very high current circuit is completed which melts the metal and welds everything together.

I also learned that welding helmets are even more cool on the inside than they look on the outside. There is a lot more to these helmets than I ever realized. And yes, for all the welding pics I shot and for all the welding that was allowed to observe, I did so while wearing one of these helmets. Failure to do so could make you go blind from the intensity of the light that is produced, which the picture does not really adequately display.

The basic process for all this was to grind small angles along the edges of the iron angle pieces as well as the edges of the posts, to clean the areas to be welded from any contamination and to serve as flow channels into which each weld could flow between the parts being welded. Then everything was clamped together, checked for square  and for centering against the post, add then the welding began.

I was put to work almost immediately on the "grinding station" where it was my job to channel and clean each of the 90 degree angle iron pieces that serve as the mounting base for each wing stand. These were then given to Aaron where they were clamped into position, and Ron did most of the welding.

There were some bumps along the way. One of the welder tips was compromised so we had to replace a tip at one point, and then we ran out of welding rod at another point. This "rod" is actually .030 wire that is continuously fed into the joint being welded through the gun that is held by the welder. Luckily Ron had all the necessary supplies for us to continue welding.

Here is a shot of the generator that was powering the MIG welder:

And next is Aaron with a surprise look when I snapped this pic. Sorry bout that Aaron. You were so busy moving around getting everything prepped that I had a hard time getting a good action shot of you:

I think this next shot of Ron is after the welding was done, and were now starting to play with his new plasma cutter. This thing actually slices through the steel and makes very precise cuts. Aaron had wanted to trim off the upper corners of the 90 degree angles on his wing stands ebcause he found that his foot tends to trip over them while he works on his wings. He asked if I wanted to do this on my stands, and I said certainly. So we proceeded to experiment with the new plasma cutter on my stands first. Unfortunately, several seconds after starting to use the plasma cutter, the generator gave out and would stop running. We were getting a power spike or something and could not figure out why. So Ron resorted to checking the manual - when all else fails..........

I am going to get some better pics of the finished wing stands that I will post tomorrow, but this last shot shows a long distance pic of a completed one still sitting on the sawhorse in the background. The nagle pieces were roughly 18 inches long, and the posts are about 66 inches tall. They also weigh at least 80-90 pounds a piece. One thing is for sure, once I get these babies secured to the garage floor they won't budge from there until I am ready to disassemble them after the wings are done. These posts will serve as a great platform for the fuselage as well, and also as a painting platform, should I decide to take on that task later on down the road. They were not cheap for set of 4 compared to the standard wood post method, but they are well worth the investment as far as I am concerned.

I still have some grinding work to do to cleanup the bottoms of each stand so that they will sit as flush as possible to the concrete floor. I also need to drill the mounting holes, and then scuff, prime, and paint each one to prevent corrosion from setting in.

Again, a huge thank you to Aaron and Ron, and even Aaron's wife Lisa, who kindly made snacks for us to eat once we finally made our way inside after freezing int he garage for several hours. That was most appreciated. This is just another example of the kind of people that I meet that are building their own airplanes - first class folks all around. This was a really great day! Wing cradle is almost finished as well - more on that tomorrow.