Garage Builds

Model Specific Discussions about the Sling TSi.
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GregV
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Joined: Sun Jul 31, 2022 9:28 am
Location: Chicago, Il

Garage Builds

Post by GregV »

Question for everyone...

What's the best practice for Garage Builds? I have a 2.5 car garage, length is a bit short ~20ft and garage door is 7ft.

How much space can I anticipate the full kit (minus engine and avionics) to occupy?

How far can I get on a Sling TSI build at home before I run into trouble? Everything firewall back?

What clearances am I concerned about for the 7ft garage door? Is it just the tail and if so, can I tip the tail down to get it under the door? Anyone done that before and what are the clearances?

Since I work at home, building at home will give me opportunities to run a few rivets between meetings, so if its do-able, I'd like to before moving it for paint and final assembly.

Thanks all.
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ibgarrett
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Re: Garage Builds

Post by ibgarrett »

Hi Greg,

I did a video on my garage build here

It's a 2.5 car garage - off hand I don't know what the dimensions are, but it's probably pretty close to what you have listed.

I'm a little over a year into my build at this time. The one issue you are going to run into is storage. I have my workbench out still occupying half of the garage as I have some more work to do on the wings (fuel tanks on, etc.) and once that is done I'll be putting the airplane in the garage on a diagonal basis. That will be enough or me to get the engine on the front of it. I'm very confident the canopy will go on with it in the garage and any antennas that may protrude up can duck under the garage door pretty easily.

My intention is to build the SlingTsi right up to needing to put the wings on at home.

Now - all of that, regarding the storage. I currently have the fuselage and workbench in my garage. The wings/control surfaces are in my next door neighbors garage (yeah - they're crazy) and I have the canopy/finishing kit in my father-in-laws garage. The cars are all outside until the project is finished. So I would at minimum plan on having some off-site or near-site storage for the parts you have finished (control surfaces, etc.) while you move on with the rest of the project.

You don't need much room to actually do the build. There is a gentleman in the UK who built a complete Tsi (beginning/middle/end up to the hangar) in his storage shed in the back yard. Just a sample of one of his build videos is at

Holler if you have any questions.

Brian
Brian Garrett
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GregV
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Location: Chicago, Il

Re: Garage Builds

Post by GregV »

Awesome, thanks Brian! For the garage door clearances, what are your thoughts? Can it get through the door with the tail on? what's the clearance pushing down on the tail?

How much space do the kit boxes take up? I'm basically going through to make a dimensional drawing of my workspace to make sure I don't end up building wings in the living room :)
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lutorm
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Re: Garage Builds

Post by lutorm »

According to the drawing on page 1-3 of the user manual, the tip of the tail is ~2400mm above the floor, and you can tip the plane 14 degrees before the tail hits the ground. The distance from the main gear to the tail is 4600mm, so that would tip the tail ~1100mm lower (4600*tan 14 deg), so then the tail would be ~1300mm above the floor. The tip of the canopy is 1800mm AGL. That seems comfortably below a 7' door.

The horizontal tail is pretty much exactly 3m wide, so that also shouldn't be a problem for a double-wide garage door.

The full length from spinner to tail is 7200mm, though, so that will not fit in a 20' garage. The nose wheel to tail distance is 21', so you wouldn't be able to put it on wheels, either.
Blog of various projects: https://blog.familjenjonsson.org/blog/
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ibgarrett
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Re: Garage Builds

Post by ibgarrett »

I'll have to double-check my garage height, but I "think" it's right around 7 feet tall. I can 100% guarantee you can get the plane with the com1 antenna on and no tail in/out of the garage at that height. I did it just yesterday for the first time. :)

With the tail on? No - definitely not. But honestly, you won't really be doing the tail assembly until you get to the airport anyway. I've had the tail on in the garage, but there's no real reason to attach it until you get to the airport. You still have to get it on a truck to get to the airport anyway. If you MUST put it on in the garage, you can always press down on the rear portion of the empennage to get it under the door on the way out, but there's no real reason to do that IMHO.

As for the boxes. What I did post-inventory was to empty the boxes into the house/basement so I could get rid of the boxes. The only real challenge with going that route is making sure you stay super organized as to what is were - otherwise it becomes a scavenger hunt. The upside is the closer you get done to a given kit, the fewer items you have to search for. All of the skins are plyable enough to bend around landings for storage. Once the parts are built, they all become rigid so they won't go back (mostly) around any turns. So if you're creative with your space, you in theory could get rid of all your boxes. Basically my theory is to build in the build space, store things in the house (or living room). :)

Honestly the real storage challenge is going to be when you have all the control surfaces built. They take up a lot of room, so make sure you have a good rack to store them with. I think I have a video and/or pictures of mine on my YT channel. If not, I can get something for you if you need it, but there are a number of designs on the inter webs.

As for fitting in the garage that Lutrom mentioned - that is correct that it won't fit nose to tail directly into the garage... for me I'm using the diagonal portion of the garage so I'm buying a bit more room that way. :)
Brian Garrett
BG8473
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Re: Garage Builds

Post by BG8473 »

Hello. New member here. I have been considering the Sling TSi for quite a while. I have my first flight in one next week in Torrance.

Talking to Barry, it sounds like my workshop size may be a limiting factor. I have a 3 car garage (one contiguous space with a 2 car section adjacent to a 1 car section, each with respective garage doors) but I want to work out of 1 car portion as long as possible, and encroach on the 2 car portion only when I must.

The 1 car portion is 10 feet by 19 feet (and is in the walking path to enter the house). I'm thinking I could build the build the empennage and wings first, then move them off site to my hangar. Then when the fuselage arrives, I would continue to build in the 1 car portion and not need to encroach until I start putting on the landing gear and engine. Has anyone done an arrangement like this?

I saw the video of the guy in the UK working out of a small shed, but I didn't find subsequent videos showing how well it worked as the build increased in size.

I have a hangar at a local airport, so I can move pieces down there upon completion. The hangar is a 30 minute drive, so I would not consider building there, just storage.

I know the QB fuselage already comes with the tail cone on. I wonder if I choose slow build, if I could hold off on installing the tail cone until AFTER the landing gear and engine are on. Has anyone done this?

Thanks!
wheath
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Location: Richmond, VA

Re: Garage Builds

Post by wheath »

I'm currently building a slow build TSI in a two car and for a while was able to keep one side useable, but once the wing kit arrived I had to expand to both sides. My plan is to put the wings in storage once they're finished and continue work on the fuselage.

Two things to think about: The crates themselves take up space, especially the wing crates which are very large. So even if you're only working on one at a time, you've still got a half unloaded crate that has to go somewhere. Second: It's very likely you won't get all the pieces you need to complete a sub assembly. There's a lot of starts and stops in a project like this. What happens when you're 70% of the way though a wing and realize a part is damaged or missing and you're waiting 6 months for a replacement? That wing is now taking up all the space in your shop and you can't really move it elsewhere until you complete it. Personally, I'd rather drive 30 mins to a hangar with plenty of space then try to work in a one-car space.
Heftiger
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Re: Garage Builds

Post by Heftiger »

We’re doing a slow build in a 2.5 car garage. One caveat is that we are storing the fuselage and undercarriage kit next door and plan on shuffling the completed assemblies to the storage spot and the fuselage kit into the workspace when we’re ready for it. We’re working on the empennage now and have the wing kits in the workspace. So far we have still been able to clean up the workspace and park a car in the extra space overnight.

I have a workshop tour on my YouTube (in my signature line).
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ibgarrett
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Re: Garage Builds

Post by ibgarrett »

BG8473 wrote: Fri Dec 23, 2022 11:53 am Hello. New member here. I have been considering the Sling TSi for quite a while. I have my first flight in one next week in Torrance.

Talking to Barry, it sounds like my workshop size may be a limiting factor. I have a 3 car garage (one contiguous space with a 2 car section adjacent to a 1 car section, each with respective garage doors) but I want to work out of 1 car portion as long as possible, and encroach on the 2 car portion only when I must.

The 1 car portion is 10 feet by 19 feet (and is in the walking path to enter the house). I'm thinking I could build the build the empennage and wings first, then move them off site to my hangar. Then when the fuselage arrives, I would continue to build in the 1 car portion and not need to encroach until I start putting on the landing gear and engine. Has anyone done an arrangement like this?

I saw the video of the guy in the UK working out of a small shed, but I didn't find subsequent videos showing how well it worked as the build increased in size.

I have a hangar at a local airport, so I can move pieces down there upon completion. The hangar is a 30 minute drive, so I would not consider building there, just storage.

I know the QB fuselage already comes with the tail cone on. I wonder if I choose slow build, if I could hold off on installing the tail cone until AFTER the landing gear and engine are on. Has anyone done this?

Thanks!
If you're building a 3 car garage you'll be in fine shape - especially if you move completed items to a hangar. Once the control surfaces (wings, emp, etc.) are done you will need to move those out for the fuselage and supporting tooling. For me - I'm storing my control surfaces in my neighbors garage (who absolutely insisted on helping in this way - I'm not going to argue) and it's taking up one bay in their garage. I'm still building in my 2 1/2 car section of the garage. It's a little tight at the moment as I'm working on several projects for the plane at the same time as I have parts available.

If you do the slow build (which is what I'm doing), you will need to put the tail cone on long before you do the landing gear/engine as they all tie together. I mean you "could" do the landing gear/engine ahead of time - but it'd be really tough to maintain the rear/fore fuselage alignment as there is a jig that ties them together - and the weight on the front would mean you'd really need to have the front fuselage with engine sitting on something. That's just way more work than necessary.
Brian Garrett
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lutorm
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Re: Garage Builds

Post by lutorm »

For reference, I got the list of crate sizes for a slow-build kit from Barry in Torrance:

Code: Select all

TSi Kit Dimensions (inces) and Weights				
Kit		Length	Width	Height	Weight
915is Engine	35	30	29	280 lbs
Canopy/Finishin	72	48	30	265 lbs
Empenage	63	30	12	125 lbs
Fuselage	94	48	17	425 lbs
FWF		32	28	23	100 lbs
Longeron Tube	119	5	5	15 lbs
Prop Box	41	13	9	23 lbs
Prop Hub Box	21	14	17	28 lbs
Pushrod Tube	119	5	5	15 lbs
Undercarriage	76	29	12	166 lbs
Upholstery Kit	64	31	24	137 lbs
Wing Spar	172	12	16	175 lbs
Wings		113	39	19	380 lbs
Blog of various projects: https://blog.familjenjonsson.org/blog/
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