Time: 6 hours
Date Complete: January 28, 2023
With such a small workspace as a one-car garage, I started thinking about the order in which I should complete the assemblies. The fuselage would be pretty cool to work on, but it's by far the largest part of the airplane and it would definitely eat up most of my available workspace - and it's not really storable anywhere else, so it's not a good option at this point in the build.
That said, I figured the wings would probably be the next best option. Once complete, they can be hung on the wall or perhaps on a fixture.
Considering where I might put the completed wings, I looked at the big (4ft x 10ft) pallet that sits on the floor opposite my workbench. It took up a HUGE section of the garage, but was only about 6 inches high. Inside of it were all of the large, flat sheets of aluminum and the plastic windscreen that were needed to complete the large parts of the kit.
I liked the idea of keeping those large sheets protected, sandwiched between the two half-inch plywood boards. It was just so HUGE that I couldn't just leave it where it was and reasonably expect to complete an aircraft. But what if the pallet could be stored vertically? That would only eat up about 6 inches along my wall and open up the garage for other things.
Then the engineer in me started thinking ... how could I easily access the sheets inside the pallet if it were stored vertically? I considered using a couple of hinges, but would I risk damaging the contents every time I opened/closed the pallet to dig out another sheet? How would I keep it closed?
Then it dawned on me that I could have both a storage rack for my wings AND a protective storage area for my sheets of aluminum ... all in one fixture. And if I put the whole contraption on casters, I could easily roll it around the garage if I needed to. Plus, I could re-use most of the wood from the pallet to make it, though I'd still needed another 1/2" sheet of plywood and a couple of 2x4s.
Here's my design:
My pallet was screwed down onto two 10ft 2x4s. I believe that the previous owner had added them, but I may be wrong. For this project, I only needed on of the two.
I purchased five 8ft 2x4s and one standard sheet of 1/2" plywood. I already had sheetrock screws from another home improvement project and used them to attach plywood to studs. But for strength, I also purchased a small box of 2-1/2" decking screws to connect 2x4s - always driving them away from any parts that might get scratched by a sharp screw tip.
Here's a video of the build to make it easier to follow along: