Introduction: Airplane Wing Desk
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About: Former Instructables employee. Living in San Francisco amidst the fog. I love getting my hands dirty by taking on new projects, developing unique skills and learning fun facts.
Mount an airplane wing on pre-made desk supports.
14 Comments
12 years ago on Introduction
where did you get the wing?
Reply 12 years ago on Introduction
I'm just guessing, but it looks a lot like an R/C model wing...one of the larger scales. Even if it's not, you could probably use one for this. You could buy one off of ebay or perhaps find a crashed one on craigslist.
This is an awesome project idea!
Reply 12 years ago on Introduction
That's not a wing, but the horizontal tail of an aircraft. By the looks of it, it's a T-tail (so it would be mounted on top of the vertical tail). It seems made from glass-fiber and is probably from a sailplane or motor-glider.
I both envy you for having it, and detest you for crudely screwing on those saw-horses ;).
A more elegant solution would be using the original bolt-holes for a single, central support, much in the same way it would have been attached to the aircraft. You would have to use wider base, so it looks like a sideways H.
Then again, better whip up something quick-and-dirty and actually use what you made, rather than have stuff sitting on the side while considering how to do it better (and not having the material to do so)...
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Considered a center mounted support but the wing structure is nowhere near strong enough to support much weight out at the ends. In the air with the stress evenly distributed it'd be fine but putting weight on a central fulcrum is too much to ask of it's light weight internal frame.
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Not to detract from what you said, but if someone wanted to, they could drill through the center of the structure and add a wooden or better yet, a steel dowel that ran the length of the wing in two or three places (tip-to-tip), which would give it the support needed to do a center mounted support. Just a heads up. Awesome instructable by the way. I'm currently looking to do something similar to this with a Bell 212 tail-rotor I picked up.
12 years ago on Introduction
You should shim it out to get better attachment. That's not the right fasteners if that is a foam core or skinned wing.
Reply 12 years ago on Introduction
Maybe great globs of epoxy could do both jobs at once?
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Epoxy is both permanent and precludes changing the angle of the desktop that does get used as a drawing surface from time to time. The problem is very slightly more complex than it first appears, but more complex none the less.
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Eh?
Culturespy = Katmataz?
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
No, she was just kind enough to post my project. I did it while i was on staff at HQ but didn't post it.
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Ahh...
Reply 11 years ago on Introduction
Was shimmed, it was skinned but I knew where the internal frame elements were. It's easy enough to repair screw holes, especially since it only needs to look nice and doesn't need to be flight worthy.
11 years ago on Introduction
Sorry, totally just ran across this post. It is in fact a wing from a sailplane. It's got an aluminum and wood frame covered with glass fiber. I was on an extreme budget, in a hurry and cruel or no to the material, the IKEA drafting table supports work great, as did slapping it together like that. It was in fact shimmed to even our the airfoil with the flat topped supports. The wing itself was in the scrap pile of an aviation museum having been donated after it was retired first from flight and then from hanging as decoration in a Sharper Image store, the rest of the sailplane is now a kite boat.
It's currently disassembled getting it's new finish and colors as well as completely re-done mountings for the legs. The book shelf element of the legs completely makes up for it not having drawers.
Best desk I've ever owned and yes, far far better quick, dirty and effective than a half imagined unrealized project sitting in a closet.
12 years ago on Introduction
whered you get the wing also could i do the structare of a wing as desk