The Build Table

I am still waiting for all of my supplies to arrive, which is OK, because as of 2 days ago I didn't have a build table on which to use them to make parts. That has been corrected. For a long time now I have been ruminating on how best to build the table. After all, your aircraft is only as straight as your table. A post by 'Little Scrapper' in the Workshop Tips and Secrets / Tools forum on HomebuiltAirplanes.com suggested that 16 gauge steel wall studs are 'dead nuts straight'. I found a retailer of such steel studs nearby and bought 4 of them with 6" webs for about $15 each. After another stop at Home Depot for a couple of sheets of 3/4" MDF ($30 each) I was ready to start my table.

The steel studs I bought were 12' long so I needed to make the table top 12' long as well. I cut one of the sheets of MDF in half and joined it to the full sheet using #20 biscuits every 6" and a bead of wood glue.

Next I pre-drilled some 1/8" holes in the stud flanges to make setting screws easier. Access to the flanges is a bit tight; you only have about 5" of clearance so I used my right angle drill motor and the super special drill bit you see in the picture (regular 1/8" drill bit snapped in half with a pair of pliers). The right angle drill motor made short work of driving the 3/4" screws through the flange into the MDF as well.




















I attached three of the studs as lengthwise runners left, right, and center, then cut the fourth one into thirds to provide the beams that the runners would sit on and that the legs would attach to. The legs are 2x6 dimensional lumber boards cut 38" long with 1/2" bolts and nuts installed in the ends to provide a way of compensating for an uneven floor.

Time Spent Today: 7.0 hrs