Category: Cabin and Cockpit

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.

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.

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…

Tonight I got back into the shop and worked on welding the horizontal supports and headrest receiving tubes on the front seats.

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…

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…