Tabitha came out today too and we made some good progress. I was at a stopping point with the tailwheel spring because I didn’t have a drill that would handle larger bits. It had a temporary bolt in place of the AN-7 that is supposed to go in there. With the new drill I was…
Author: Jared Yates
Seat Foam Ergonomics
Today Tabitha came out to help. With the seat pans finished, it was time to start thinking about cutting the foam for them. But first, the flooring supplies came in, both the foam padding and the top layer. The plan for the seats is to use one inch of firm tempur foam on the bottom,…
Welding Skylight Tubes
I started cutting and adding in some of the new skylight tubes today. I cut a notch into the tube to make it match the mounting area. Mysterious note from the future! I learned in retrospect that the following picture shows a tube that is ground a little too much. It should have been a…
Skylight Modifications
Today I finished the back seat covering. Now it’s ready for some airplane noises. After I finished the back seat I took a little lunch break. Fellow EAA 731 member Kevin Ball stopped by and we spent an hour or so talking about the airplane, then I went over to Bart’s to take a look…
Welding, Casting, Covering
asting complete on 1, elt brscket on, control sticks done, cast 2, cover front seat bottoms and backs 1800 lunch? With one aileron balance tube done, the second was easy. I’ll elaborate more on the process this time. I used tire weights that were really dirty. I would tilt the pan, and direct the torch…
Back from Sun-N-Fun
It’s been a while since the last building entry, but I’ve been out of town more than usual. I just got back from Sun-N-Fun with a new list of ideas and a few new parts. One of my SNF finds was these LED position lights. If I didn’t already have the aeroflash lights, I would…
ELT Antenna Bracket
Today I was in the mood for some welding. First, I noticed back when I primed the headrests that I had missed a problem with one of them. I had started to cut one of the horizontal tubes, then realized that I was cutting in the wrong place. This left a scored line around the…
Bending Cable Guards Again
I needed to bend the new aft cable guards again, so this time I took some pictures of the process that I described earlier. Thanks again to Brad and Joel for letting me use their machinery! The weather was nice, so I put the blanks into the car that Dad was driving down to the…
Cable Guards and More Parts
Today I spent some time going through a big order of parts and hardware. This order included lots of stuff, including the rest of the screws for the wing inspection panels. Dad was in town, so he cut out some new strips of aluminum for the aft section of the rudder cable guards. I also…
Slave Labor
Dad was in town today so he stopped by to drill out some rivets. Tabitha was also there with us. In the picture she is working on her practice toolbox from Van’s. She said that she should get to work on the real airplane since dad gets to work on the real airplane, and said…
Cable Guard vs Baggage Door
This was my first attempt at making a transition for the rudder cable guard. Since this piece was too short (see the left side of the picture) I figured it was expendable. I think that the best solution is going to be a combination of a piece like this one (but longer) and a door…
Rudder Cable Guards
Today I drilled and clecoed the rudder cable guards in place. The aft guards are too short. I tried to make them 24″ long each so that they would come out of a 48″ piece of stock. Since the aft bulkhead forms an obtuse angle with the floorboard, the cable guard needs to be longer…
Picking Up Our Engine
Today I drove up to Bob’s to pick up our engine! My day started very early in a hotel near the Tri-Cities airport. In a rare work schedule fluke, my day ended when we arrived in CLT at around 6:15 in the morning. I drove down to the south part of CLT to get to…
Burn Testing Nautolux Decco Dot
I have been looking for some good material to use as a floor covering. Bob uses bare aluminum, and that method certainly has some merits. It is light, simple, and durable. Tabitha would rather have something that looks a bit more finished, but also something that dampens vibration a little bit better. She says that…
Priming the Seat Frames
Today I was able to get away for a few minutes to finish prepping the seat frames for paint and apply a coat of epoxy primer. Today was one of the first days that we’ve had lately with a warm enough temperature. This was my first time to use the little Chinese paint gun that…
Prepping Seat Frames for Paint
My plan was to use my cheap little sand blaster to prep the seat frames, but it didn’t work so well. The sand blaster needs some attention, but I was able to use it to clean most of the weld beads. Since the rest of the areas were flat and mostly straight, I used the…
Bending the Long Guards
Since my toy brake only bends pieces up to 18″ wide, I had to find another way to bend the longer rudder cable guards. They are 25″ and 29″. Brad was nice enough to let me use the brake at his shop. It was a combination roll/shear/brake from Northern tool, and the dies were really…
Finished Right Wingtip Mount
Today I drilled the top mounting holes for the right wingtip and clecoed everything in place. I’m still going to have to do some work on the gap between the fiberglass and aluminum to try and get something that is rain tight. I walked over to Danny’s hangar to see how Vans solves the problem,…
Rudder Cable Guards & Skylight
I wanted a break from the wingtips today so I started working on some guards for the rudder cables. Since the cables run along the inside of the cabin, I wanted to protect them from passengers who are children, passengers who act like children, and shifting cargo. I also plan to use the guards to…
Wingtips and Seats
I was able to get some good working time in today. The two areas of interest were the wingtip and the seats. Back when I was at Bob’s this fall, I noticed that the fiberglass wingtips on his new Patrol LSA prototype were really smooth, with no waves between the rivets. I asked him how…
Increase Wingtip-Aileron Gap
Today I was working on the wingtip mounting strip. I had originally put it in place with about a 3/16″ gap between the strip and the aileron, but I was re-reading Eric’s Building Manual and saw where he recommended a 1/2″ gap. This made a lot more sense, especially because it would be pretty stinky…
Tiny Bubbles
Today I didn’t have much time to work, but I did want to start the zinc removal on the headrest nuts. Welding zinc plated parts can lead to the discharge of zinc fumes, which can lead to zinc poisoning, which is not any fun from what I hear. So today I dropped a few of…
More Headrests
Today was just more of the same work on the headrests. This entry is just to preserve the hours and the date. I’m having lots of fun and getting some good welding practice on the whole headrest operation for sure.
On to the Back Seat Headrests
Today I added the vertical receiving posts for the back seat headrests. By now this is getting to be fairly routine, though I do find myself craving welding. I really could just sit around and weld stuff for hours.
Making the other Headrests
I’ve been really busy lately, so to stay on track I started today with working in one-hour increments on the principle that one hour is better than no hours. We’ve had some exceptionally good weather, so I was able to get together with Dave for some motorcycling and wood cutting. I can build airplanes inside…
More Time Welding Front Seats
Tonight I got back into the shop and worked on welding the horizontal supports and headrest receiving tubes on the front seats.
Welding Headrest Structures
With all of those tubes cut, it was time to start welding. I started by installing the horizontal pieces. This was just a matter of measuring the height on the left and right side and tacking the tube in place. After I had installed the first vertical tube I remembered about how I should have…
Allowing for Headrests
I should add some background information here about why I would want to mess up a perfectly good set of Avipro seats. In my research about how to make safe seats, I read about how important headrests are. Most pilots and builders that I talk with about this disagree. They say that most impacts in…
New Goodies
Today I spent an additional 1.5 hours on the wingtip, but the more exciting news is that an order came in from Wicks. I ordered some 5052 Aluminum to make fuel lines out of, along with some foam for the seats. My plan for the seats is to use tempur foam for the bottom layer…
Flush Mount Wingtip Continued
Today I added more of the strip material that will hold on the flush mounted wing tip. It goes much faster in the straight stretches because I don’t have to cut relief holes for as many flutes. I put the aileron back on so that I could make sure that the gap was even and…
Wrapping up the Belly Piece
Today I finished the aluminum belly piece, at least for now. I wanted to further test my wingtip strip technique, so I put in a few rivets.
Tabitha Visits the Hangar
Today Tabitha came out and started working on her toolbox practice kit. The weather was nice, so we opened up the hangar door and let some sunshine in. I made more progress on drilling out the rivets that held on the nutplates for the wingtip screws, and started making the first strip for the wingtip…
Drilling Rivets
Today I finally got a nice middle joining angle for the two belly pieces, on the 4th attempt. It looks fine now. I spent the rest of the time drilling out rivets on the wingtip. I really thought that attempt number 3 was going to be a good one, but I drilled the holes too…
Aluminum Fabrication
I only had half an hour to work today, but I made up another aluminum attach/stiffener for the belly panels to join with. When I drilled the holes, it turns out that the angle piece wasn’t wide enough, and thus the edge distance from the rivets was way too small. See pictures in the next…
Aluminum Belly Panel, Left Side
Today I worked on installing the left side belly panel. It is the same as yesterday’s entry, but just on the other side of the airplane.
Right Front Belly AL Panel
Today I was working on the new aluminum piece that goes on the belly just aft of the exhaust tunnel. I decided to remake these pieces because of some mismatched holes, and so that I could make the panel in two pieces. By making the left and right halves separate, I feel like I can…
Trim and Debur Right AL Panel
Today I spent some time trimming the panel for the right side. The file seems to be quite effective, especially when I follow it with some 150 Aluminum Oxide emery cloth.
Welding Practice
I wanted to get in a little more welding practice and I needed to make a gift for our dirty santa gift exchange, so I made this guy out of some scrap materials: It was the most evil-looking creature that I could create.
The Other Side
Welding the other side of the fuselage went much faster, and it turned out better. I used a little rattle-can primer to keep the metal from rusting. I’ll replace that with some epoxy primer when the weather warms up, so that I can be sure that the covering process won’t lift the paint.
Steel Instead
I decided that I didn’t like the idea of using aluminum angle as the aft support for the panel that goes under the door. This was mostly because I couldn’t think of a way to attach the aluminum angle very cleanly, so I figured I’d try to make one out of steel. I would be…
Optional Aluminum Panel
I had a surprise morning off from work due to some cancellations, so I spent a couple of hours working on a trailing edge support for the optional aluminum panel that goes under the door. I like the idea of using this panel for two main reasons. One is to make for a place to…
Door Latches and Boot Cowl
I wanted to work on something other than the boot cowl for a little while, so I put together one of the door latches. I’m planning to use Bob’s design for the latch and will add some locks. I found some very compact cylinders at Home Depot for under $5 each. I got 3 that…
Visit to Bob’s Again
Today I made a trip up to Fincastle to Bob’s. We’re going to be taking over the Bearhawk logo shirts and hats and the trip was to pick up Bill’s inventory. While I was there I asked Bob a few questions and took some pictures of his airplanes. I’m glad to live within a 3-hour…
Exhaust Tunnel and Barts RV
I only had a few minutes to work today, but I got the exhaust tunnel attached and the little pieces clecoed. Last night we went to visit Bart’s RV-8 Project. He had the whole EAA chapter over and cooked some burgers. Bart’s project is coming along nicely and he’s going to put the engine on…
Boot Cowl Head Scratching
I was fairly proud of the way the firewall turned out, so I started working on the boot cowl. Richard built the instrument panel top with a removable triangle panel so that the joint is on the inside of the windshield. Bob’s prototype is just the opposite, with the hole for the cabane struts cut…
Quality Control and Pushrods
Today I spent most of the day working in the hangar and it was great fun. I spent about an hour sorting out the dumped pile of hardware, and this was a good experience. I got to be pretty fast with identifying the #6 and #8 nutplates. I also started going through the wing counting…
Firewall Trimming Continued
Here is a bit more time with working on the firewall, with no substantial content beyond the last post. I just got back into town from a nice weekend of fishing, and while I was gone the firewall didn’t trim itself.
Nicopress Check and Firewall
Since I’m finally caught up on inventory and counting for a while, I spent some time checking nicopresses. I checked each one with a go/no-go guage and marked the good ones with a green sharpie. They are all good, but that will help me remember to check in case I find one that isn’t green…
Fuel Systems and Brakes
Today I finished welding the elevator trim pushrods: I also took an inventory of the fuel system and brakes to figure up which fittings I’ll need and how much line to use. I went back to read the Beartracks and realized that Bob recommended 5052 Aluminum lines instead of the softer and much cheaper 3003….
Counting Bolts Again
Today I spent half an hour or so going through my list of bolts to buy again, this time with regard for the possibility of drilling our own solid bolts. It’s not very much time, but it’s all we could fit into the schedule today. I did manage to dump out a little tackle box…
Answering Questions
I called Bob today and asked him about the AN210-3A vs -3B pulleys. He said either would work just fine. I also asked him about the braided fuel line, which is something I’ve been waffling about for a while. The issue is that the current fuel lines are braided stainless lines instead of solid 3003…
Hardware Patrol
Today I continued my hardware patrol. I have been through the entire fuselage and the control stick and have replaced and/or noted what I’ll need to get to continue. I can definitely justify the expense of a drilling guide since I have lots of bolts that are good candidates for drilling for cotter keys. I…
Nuts and Bolts
Sorting out which bolt goes to which nut and where the hardware is suposed to be.
Working on the Airplane
Today I started to prepare the right side brake pedals for installation. I also spent some time shoveling the gravel on the hangar floor to try and help encourage good drainage of rain. I was glad to spend less time on workshop infrastructure and actually get to work on the bearhawk some. I noticed that…
Organizing and Inventory
Making a list and checking it twice!
Step 1: A Hangar
This summer we worked on a place to work on the Bearhawk. Since there is an airport that is very close to our house, we decided to locate the project there. This is what the hangar looked like before: And here is the “after”: Patrick and Bradley came to help us move the airplane from…
Putting the Fuselage on the Landing Gear
Putting the fuselage on the landing gear so that it will be easier to move from the trailer!
Ordering the Engine
Since most engine companies require some lead-time, my first goal after securing the purchase of the kit was to start deciding on an engine. I knew that we wanted a Lycoming 4-cylinder, but that only narrows it down to a few hundred variants. I also knew that we didn’t want fuel injection, and that we…
A Change in Plans
Buying and Moving the Kit
Visiting Eric Newton and the MS Mudbug
 On March 15th 2009, Tabitha and I went to the Mississippi Coast to visit Eric Newton and his Miss’ippi Mudbug. I had seen a few completed Bearhawks, but Tabitha had not been able to sit in one yet. On this particular visit, I was going to be in Gulfport for work, and my Dad…
Visiting Patrick’s RV
Visiting Patrick’s RV Project
First Log Entry – Prerequisites
Reading the Books, Getting the Plans