This afternoon,
with the help of Cameron, my grandson, I made some changes in the garage to increase
the work space and parking space. We
started by pushing the fuselage outside on the driveway. We then put the right wing and stabilator on
the lawn. At this point we were able to
get rid of some of the 'stuff' leaning against the garage wall behind that wing
rack that was just taking up space. I
brought the Army trailer home and we started throwing in the items to be
discarded. Items such as large sheets of
cardboard collected over the years.
Scraps of lumber and pieces of left over plywood. All in all we were able to gain several
inches of space.
We took the ladder
off of the wall and rearranged the storage shelf and some of the other things
stored against and on the wall.
Next we
hung the new wing rack on the wall. I put
some screw eyes in the ceiling and used some #10 wire to make some hook
supports. These hooks go into screw eyes
installed on the wing rack. When the
rack was ready we put the wing in place and hooked it to the ceiling. We also reattached the ladder rack to the
wall and some hooks to hold the portable flag pole. With a little more rearranging we were able
to get some additional space.
At that point
we started the process of cutting down the rolling wing rack. I started by
having Cameron cut the carpet strips off of the back side of the wing
rack. I used a hand saw to cut down the
back leg, through the gussets and through the bottom 2x4 on each end. We then removed the caster from the lower leg
that had been removed and reinstalled it so it is below the vertical 2x4 which
used to be in the center of the rack. We
then put the stabilator on the rack and then put the single wing back in place.
The rack now rolls up to the wall and we have
saved close to 2' of space. While we
were working we constructed a new table to use as an engine work table.
It is the bottom section of my old painting
station. I cut the lower legs from the
paint station a couple of weeks ago with the intent of using them to make a
rolling engine work table. By using the
fold up ends to my large work table that I removed a couple of months ago, I
was able to put a top on the new engine work stand. This will allow me to put the engine on a
table and move it around as needed. I
plan to order the engine in a week or two.
In the mean time it will site in the garage under the tail cone.
With
all of the changes made in the garage and the increased space (not really as
much as I would have liked to gain) I will start working on the installation of
the engine cowling and the wheel pants.
That will pretty much complete the work on the finishing kit and I will be
ready to start working on the engine
