Primed and painted the Wing Stands

I managed to get the wing stands scuffed, re-cleaned, primed and painted. A long time ago, way back when I began this project, I had completed Van's Tool box kit after receiving my tools from Cleaveland Tools to acclamate myself to them in preparation for the larger task ahead. When the toolbox was completed I purcchased some spray paint to match the colors that had grabbed my attention at the time - a bright blue and an aircraft gray. I had planned to use them on the toolbox, but I never did. So it has remained primed with Napa 7220 gray primer ever since.

Fast forward to today. I knew that I needed to properly preserve the steel wing stands by priming them and painting them once they were ready, and that day finally came. I used a wire bristle brush in my electric drill to rough up the surfaces of all four stands, and then re-cleaned them with acetone. I also used a tapered grinding bit that fits in my drill to debur each of the mounting holes in the bases. I then primed all four stands them with about 1.5 cans of Napa 7220.

Then finally, holding true to my nature to act, think, speak, and do things differently than most others, I did not paint them all with just one solid pretty color. Instead, I remembered that I still had the blue and gray paint on the shelf, and decided to have some fun. I decided to emulate the top and botton color scheme as seen on the photo at the top of my blog. I used the aircraft gray paint on the bottom of each stand, and the blue paint on the top. I also chose not to make any clean, crip lines that separate the two colors. Since one of my absolute passions in life is WW II aircraft, I wanted to try my hand at using paint from spray can to create the airbrushed non-linear blended look of the two colors, similar to the way that WWII aircraft were painted as part of their camoflage schemes. Here are some shots of the results:

I have to say I like the results. Others will probably look at this and have other opinions, and I really don't care. Just one of the pleasures of living in a free country where I can choose to use whatever colors I want to build my own airplane! An interesting thing about this ceramic blue hight temp engine block paint that used. It seems to have a multi-color characteristic to it. It turns a light turqois in the sunlight, and is a much darker blue tone in the shade. Here is another shot of all of them side by side. Just imagine this is the paint line of my fuselage :)

With the help of my son I also repositioned the hanging bracket for my HS so that it would be a little bit easier than where I had it before, but the refrigerator has proved to make it just as difficult to hang, so no matter what I try this task is still a bit difficult, but do-able.

Now my work table is free again, and I can start match drilling ribs to the wing spars by clamping one spar to the table and the other one to the work benches. Next steps are also to mark the final locations for both sets of wing stands, rent the rotary hammer drill, drill the 16 mounting holes in the concrete floor, and then finish installing the remaining hardware for the angle cross members that will actually support each wing spar at a good working height. I am still concerned about the un-evenness of my concrete floor, but since the angle supports will be adjustable for level, regardless of the less level attitude of the wing stands due to the unneven floor, I am not terribly concerned about it. as long as the centerlines of each stand are relatively close aligned with each other, I can adjust the angle supports for leveling the spars with no problem.

One thing that I still have to resolve is that I need to ensure that there is enough room in front of the work benches so that I can use them to build the flaps and ailerons that also come with the wing kit. The only problem is that my concrete floor has a relief line between two separate slabs of poured concrete, and in order to preserve the spacing in front of the work benches and still be able to get both cars in the garage I will need to position the wing stands in such a way that the mounting brackets will straddle both slabs of concrete. Since the slabs are at least 20 years old, I think this will be OK, but it might make lining up the stands on both ends a bit of challenge.

I will need to snap some chalk lines once I have made my final decisions as to the pacement of the stands, and then I get to try my hand at a rotary hammer drill for the first time. Lucky me!