Today we worked more on the odds and ends. Dad installed seatbelts while I took the stainless tunnel under the boot cowl off. This part was vibrating when the engine ran, so I adhered a piece of 1/4″ thick closed-cell foam to try and dampen the vibrations. The rear seat belts have fairly large fittings…
Category: Fuselage
Fuselage work, excepting firewall forward and cabin/cockpit
Filling the Fuel Tanks
This morning dad came out to help again, and we finished up the wing root fairings. I used pliobond to attach velcro to the fuselage tubes in the area where the back cabin bulkhead attaches. I noticed a very small oil leak around the prop governor control head, and a few days ago I ordered…
Weighing
I’ve spent some time trying to come up with a good way to hold the airworthiness certificate and registration in place. The most light-weight option that I could come up with was to use pages from a small photo album. A trip to the Mighty Dollar yielded a little bunny book that I took two…
Fuel Flow Test and Engine Run
Much of the work lately has been sequential. I have a list of tasks that can’t really be done out of order. Today I was finally to the point on the list where it is was time to test the fuel flow. I did it in almost the same way that Eric Newton did, although…
Rigging the Ailerons
I started to set up the ailerons for their final rigging, and realized that when I routed the cables yesterday, the ends at the turnbuckles were twisted and not quite right. This made the cables about 1/2″ too long, but I was able to correct this by carefully removing the nicopress, shortening the cables, and…
MLG Width Adjustment
After a few days of work at my regular job, I was glad to get back to Bearhawk preparations. I installed batteries in the ELT and armed it. I set up to make the adjustments to the landing gear width as instructed by Bob. First, I tied a rope around the bottom of one axle,…
Main Landing Gear
I started today by adding a little bit of fuel to the tanks. I wanted to see if there were any leaks, and there were a few. I was able to stop the leaks by snugging up the nuts a little. One of the necessary adjustments is to set the width of the main landing…
Pitot Tube
This morning I finished with installing the pitot tube, and connected the AOA and pitot lines. I installed the VHF comm antennas in the top of the wings, and secured the wires for the right side wing rooth. I finally connected the front left upper fuel line at the wing root, since it needed a…
Installing the Wings
The timing of this whole relocation effort has worked out pretty well. Tonight was the EAA meeting, so we made it a project visit. Before the meeting, I spent a few minutes checking out the cowl clearance problem, and installing the rigid tube portion of the engine breather line. Lots of folks came out to…
Moving the Fuselage to HKY
Our little airport is going to be a great place to base our Bearhawk, in part because it is really close to the house. It’s a small airport though, and not really well suited for a safe first flight. As such, the plan has been to move the airplane to the municipal airport about 5…
Instrument Panel Labels
Since the roof and skylight materials are done, it’s time to get the windshield in place for good. I used the felt tape that came with the windshield to pad the bottom. The left and right post fairings worked pretty well, and the fiberglass fairing fits nicely. I used a bead of Lexel to try…
Stripes on the Cowl
At this stage of the building process I’m tying up lots of loose ends and checking things off of the to-do list. I started by making a length of coax that will go where I had intended to put the balun in the previous antenna arrangement. I mounted the cabin heat box in the hole…
Cowl Reinforcements
In some areas of the cowl, the exhaust clearance holes have caused some pretty narrow sections. I can see that those might be potential crack areas, so I made some doublers to help them out. The first is for the area between the scoop and the exhaust tailpipe. The second is between the scoop and…
Fiberglass Surface Work
Tonight I sanded the filler that I applied yesterday to the new fiberglass cowl bump and the windshield fairing. The windshield fairing is ready to go, and the bump only needs a little bit more. The amount of work required to finish the bump was much less than on previous parts. I would definitely recommend…
Preparing for Fiberglass
The exhaust clearance problem is going to require a little bit of fiberglass work. My strategy is to build up some foam on the pipes so that I’ll have a safe gap, then lay the fiberglass up right on that foam. To help make sure that the gap is a consistent 3/4″, I made up…
Skylight and Cowling
I had some help today from Tabitha and her dad. They started making the plates that will go on either side of the new VHF nav antenna. These plates are basically the same as round inspection covers, except that they have a slot in the middle to clear the antenna puck. While they did that,…
Installing the Exhaust
On the day that I was planning to leave to drive to Oshkosh, we got a huge amount of rain, and part of our driveway washed away. We had a big mess in the yard and lots of things to clean up, so I’ve lost a few weeks worth of building time. Today I was…
Boot Cowl Rivets Continued
I’ve noticed that the control sticks have a little bit of play around the fore-aft aligned bolts that they pivot on. I thought it would be worth trying to correct this, and after considering several options, the most viable seemed to be to enlarge the hole slightly and use a specially-made bolt of a larger…
Horizontal Stab Fairings
Tabitha and Felicia came out to help today. We installed the new tubing in the sight gauges and reinstalled them. We deburred the previously-made wing root fairing for the right wing. The girls went home for supper while I stayed to make the root fairings for the horizontal stabilizer. They attach to the inboard rib…
Boot Cowl Riveting
Yesterday’s black paint was dry, so I riveted on the windshield support angles. I reinstalled the now complete boot cowl pieces and riveted the front. Since those front rivets are through the firewall flange, they are very easy to get to for squeezing. The back rivets are a little bit more difficult, so I’ll do…
Striping for Blue
Since the boot cowl parts and door parts have their white paint in place, today I started laying out the stripes for the blue coat. In the case of the upper front windows, they didn’t get any white, since they will be all blue. I also started working on a mount for the pitot tube,…
Nutplates and White Paint
Several days ago I ran out of number 6 nutplates, so I ordered more. They arrived today, and I spent a while dimpling their lugs and installing them on various parts, including the belly sheet metal, the boot cowl, and the wing root. I riveted together the inspection covers that I had previously disassembled for…
Painting White
Today I sprayed white paint on the parts that I primed a week ago. I added to that pile the rear cargo door, front cargo door parts, and other window parts.
Nutplates and Wingtips
Today I worked on the wingtips yet again. I have really made the whole wingtip process much harder than it needed to be. I added the nutplates back for overlap mounting, and reinstalled the strobe power supplies. I also added a bit of window screen to the lightening holes in the tip rib. I also…
Final Boot Cowl Continued
This morning I started by drilling the holes in the lower boot cowl and belly panels to final size. I cut out some new aluminum for the roof, and the strips that will retain the left rear window. I drilled the holes in the firewall station of the boot cowl (and the firewall flange) to…
Roof and Boot Cowl
I started off today by finishing the bend that I started yesterday. I only bent the roof piece to about 90 degrees on the brake, because that was all it would do. This morning I used the dead blow hammer to bend it the rest of the way over. Unfortunately, it’s too short. When I…
Fairlead Pliers
I started re-installing the control cables today, and after a little bit of trying it became obvious that I was going to need to be able to get the fairlead clips on with the limited access that I had in the fuselage. I came up with the idea of modifying my snap ring pliers so…
Brake Lines and Blue Paint
Today was a marathon day in the hangar that spanned from 8:15am to 2:00am, with a break for lunch of course. Here’s a nice overview picture of the parts hanging from the ceiling, each protected from dust and over spray by a sheet of clear plastic. I started working on the inspection covers for the…
Fuselage Plumbing
I was getting ready to prime the wing today, but it started raining. Instead I started routing the static line from the back of the fuselage up to the instrument panel. I also reinstalled the rest of the cabin fuel lines. I had originally planned to route the wires for the manifold pressure sender through…
More Wing Preparations
Today was a productive day with help from Jack and Vince. In the morning I put the casters back onto the wing rack in preparation for moving the right wing off of the rotisserie and on to the rack. Above you can see the left wing out in the sun. The problem with talking about…
Powering Up the Avionics
I started today by preparing and painting the tailwheel spring. I suspect that the paint will be somewhat short-lived on this part, but if it starts to come off, I’ll just paint it again. I cleaned off the light surface corrosion and applied a flat black rustoleum. All of the tailwheel parts were ready to…
Rudder Pedal Changes
Yesterday’s efforts to strip the tailwheel fork were not fruitful. The abrasive that I was using was too fine and the coating was too tough. Today I was able to remove it with the die grinder and a scotchbrite wheel. I had previously painted the rudder pedal assembly, and while it turned out quite nicely,…
Another Round of Primer
The weather today was good enough for priming, and I finally have a big enough pile of parts ot make it worthwhile. I etched all of the parts and the instrument panel, then primed them. On the items that will need both sides painted, I only painted one side today.
Still More Fuselage Reassembly
Today I tied up a few more loose ends of wires. I started with the ELT remote. The remote uses a cable that looks just like a phone line. I wanted to shorten it, so I clipped off the old end several months ago. This also made it much easier to fish the cable through…
Reinstalling the Landing Gear
This morning I used a little bit of fuel in a steel bowl to clean the old grease out of the wheel bearings. Then I packed them with fresh Aeroshell grease and put the wheels back together. While I had the wheels in my hand, I checked to be sure that they would fit in…
Preparing for Landing Gear Assembly
This afternoon I finished assembling the cargo door latch that I started yesterday. I also made a little aluminum plate that will cover the center of the mechanism, hopefully reducing the odds of getting a finger caught in there on a cold and windy night somewhere. Then I drilled the holes in the front cargo…
Spraying the Interior
I’m thankful for being able to spend some serious hours in the shop this month. Today was a good painting day, at least in the afternoon, so I spent the morning wrapping up a few more prep tasks on the fuselage interior. I couldn’t come up with an easy way to mask the floor area….
Prepping the Interior
The fuselage paint has had plenty of time to crosslink, so today I started masking so that I can spray the interior. I didn’t spray it back when I was spraying the white on the outside of the fuselage, in part because we hadn’t decided on the interior color. In retrospect it would have been…
Painting Little Parts
I’m taking advantage of this relatively warm weather to get as much painting done as possible. Today was a long but productive day that started with getting the ailerons and right flap safely stored in the ceiling. I covered those parts with plastic to protect them from dirt and overspray that might escape the booth….
Spraying the Fuslage Blue
This afternoon the weather was finally good enough to paint again. I sprayed the blue coat on the fuselage, then removed the tapes to check for problems. The paint ran under the tape a little at each point where the pinked edges intersected the tape seam. I was able to remove the larger part of…
Door Frame Preparations
It has been too cold to paint, and I haven’t been spending many hours in the hangar. Today I finished cleaning up the tiedown rings, and started drilling the door skins and frames to final size. They were all drilled to #40, but I’m planning to use 1/8″ rivets to hold the skins on the…
Making Tiedown Rings
I have always had some reservations about the durability of our Maule tailwheel, so when Georg was selling his lightly-used Bob-designed tailwheel for a good price, I was glad to buy it. Today I did a trial fit to the spring to make sure it would fit, then disassembled it. I’ll paint it white to…
Fuselage Blue Prep Continued
This afternoon I continued with preparations to the fuselage for the next coat. This kind of work is more time consuming and tedious than I had anticipated. Since I’m painting in parts, I have to make sure that all of the stripes are located very precisely. We decided to use a pattern as follows: starting…
Fuselage Blue Prep
Today I removed the masking tapes from the fuselage, and started adding paper to the front end of the fuselage for the upcoming blue painting. Here’s the result of the taping:
Spraying White on the Fuselage
This afternoon my Mom was in town, so we all came out to the hangar to get a few things done. They helped me move the fuselage into the paint booth. I later learned to put wheels on the front wood pieces, but back then it was still a three person job. After they left,…
Laying out Fin Stripes
Today we both came out so we could get the wing moved out of the paint booth. Then we spent a while laying out the white stripes that will go on the vertical stabilizer and rudder. We’re using Bob’s measurements so that our stripes will match his, but even with those measurements it was still…
Second Coat of Polyspray
This afternoon I did a little bit more prep and sprayed the second coat of Polyspray on the fuselage, landing gear, rear seat back, scrap panel, and the patches on the tops of the horizontal stabilizer. I also removed the tapes from the right wing and started taping for the blue coat.
Sanding the Fuselage
Today I had a visit from local EAA friend Skip. Skip is thinking about building a Bearhawk LSA and wanted to try some welding practice. While he did that I sanded the fuselage Polyspray, ironed down a few bits of tape that lifted, and in general got ready to spray the next coat.
Polyspray on the Fuselage
This morning Tabitha came out to help with laying out the masking tapes on the right wing. We are planning to only paint the areas that are going to show, so instead of painting the whole wing white and then masking off the blue areas, we’re going to mask off the white areas, spray white,…
Wing Paint Prep
While the Polyspray is drying a little I worked on wing preparations. I built the left wing rotisserie so that I could get the wing off of the rack, and made a few parts for the pitot tube mount. I’ll see if I can get my friend Alan to weld the aluminum parts, since that…
Fuselage Smoothing
Today I finished heat-smoothing the exterior of the fuselage and one side of the interior. I found that the iron shoe was getting pretty gummy with baked-on Polybrush, so much so that MEK wasn’t really getting it off. The green scotchbrite pad in the die grinder worked pretty well though, and left behind a nice…
Repairing the Small Iron
One downside of using model airplane irons to smooth covering imperfections is that they really aren’t designed for that kind of pressure. I’ve damaged a few of them now. This wooden handled iron failed right in the very thin spot where the shoe top joins the handle. To reinforce that area, I brazed in a…
Priming the Right Wing
This morning I added some fabric tapes to the right side of the fuselage, then prepared for a round of priming. Since we have a complicated striping pattern, I’m priming the access hole covers now, so that we can apply the top coats with them in place.
Wing Masking
Since I’m not planning to paint the wing root, tip, or trailing edge areas, I added some masking paper and tape to block them off. I finished the metal prep on the top of the wing: Then I moved it into the paint booth with some help from Tabitha, Danny, and Jeff. I finished the…
Wing Preparation
Today I continued with paint prep for the right wing, while Tabitha worked on more fuselage taping.
Wing Rotisserie Continued
Today we were both back out at the hangar. Tabitha continued with adding tapes to the fuselage, while I continued with getting the right wing onto the rotisserie. Here’s what one end of the rotisserie looks like. The double 2x4s stick into the wing by at least two center ribs to spread out the load….
Wing Rotisserie
Tabitha came out today to help get the right wing ready to go on the rotisserie. That involved riveting the tip rib back onto the skin, since I recently drilled those rivets out to remove the flush mounting strip. My strategy for getting the wing onto the rotisserie was to start with it on sawhorses….
Paint Booth Details
Previously I wrote about building the paint booth, but today I added the airflow system. There was an old furnace under our house that had a nice big blower. I spent some time under there with the reciprocating saw and extracted it for the paint booth. A couple of 2×4 scraps and a stub of…
Inspection Rings and Tapes
Note from the future: I had to add several more rings than you see here. For example, I had to add another hole in the top of the cabin, another three or four holes in the tail area, another on each landing gear leg, and that’s not to mention that I forgot to account for…
Fabric Taping
Now it’s time to start down the long road of reinforcing tapes. I started with the round doilies for the inspection rings. I found a good deal on some of these fancy pinking shears: Danny stopped by and tried them out, and liked them so much that he cut out all of the doilies for…
Building the Paint Booth
It will be time to start painting soon, so I built a paint both out of plastic and PVC pipe. I used 10-foot lengths of PVC electrical conduit, which was cheaper than the white stuff. I found a roll of plastic that was 10-feet wide, so that made for easy layout. Update- The booth isn’t…
Polybrush on the Fuselage
It’s finally time to start putting some new colors on the fuselage. I wiped the fuselage fabric with MEK and then brushed on a coat of Polybrush. Next I applied the reinforcing tape to the VS ribs. I finished the lower rib, and will pick up with the upper rib next time.
Visitor Day
I hadn’t planned to have so many visitors today, but it sure was nice! I started out early in the morning with the rest of the remaining fuselage cementing. Skip stopped by in his Kitfox and visited for a little while. I had sent a message out to our EAA chapter members to invite folks…
Cementing Continued
This covering stuff takes a while! Today I worked until I ran out of cement (two quarts so far in the project). I installed a piece on the lower right side under the cargo door. Since I’ll have to order more cement, I spent time today to make sure I have enough reinforcing tapes too.
Envelope Continued
Today we continued with cementing the envelope. Once the bottom was cemented for most of the back end, I did some preliminary shrinking on alternating sides of the seam to help smooth out the most severe wrinkles and make sure that we’d be able to get a good final shape. I’m planning to finish this…
Installing the Envelope
Most of the fuselage fabric is in a one piece envelope from Jim and Dondi at Aircraft Technical Support. The envelope is made of two pieces of heavy duty fabric, sewn together so that a seam runs along the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer and the left top stringer. The best way to start…
Fuselage Covering
This morning I finished cementing the belly fabric in place. I shrank the fabric to 225 degrees and it looks much better. With the distractions of the rest of the fuselage hidden by the fabric, I see that the stringers aren’t quite straight. I probably managed to bend the standoffs a little while handling the…
Interior Covering Continued
Today I continued with the fabric covering for the interior. I divided the cabin area roof into four sections, with the first being as shown below: I didn’t account for my back seat shoulder harness tab when I did this piece. When I do the other side I’ll cut a small slot and slide the…
Interior Covering
Today we were both out at the hangar to get started on the fuselage fabric covering. The first step was to cover the interior, since some of the interior pieces need to overlap under outside pieces. After our work session I read back through Eric’s manual and saw that he was also bogged down a…
Anti-Chafe Tape
There are a few more things that I need to have done before we can start covering. For example, the lower fuel lines that cross under the front door sills need to be in place. I installed those lines and added a nutplate for a clamp that will support the right rear vertical line. With…
Covering Prep
This morning I mixed up a batch of epoxy, which I used to laminate a strip of unidirectional carbon fiber to the inside of the wingtip. Hopefully this will keep the scalloping down. I also used the epoxy to secure the wooden ribs to the vertical stabilizer steel rib. Here are a few more nutplates…
Installing Stringers
I was glad to be done with painting for a little while, and ready to start reassembling things! I sanded the filler on the wingtip and applied a coat of gray automotive primer to check the progress. I installed the stringers with long blind rivets. These were all aluminum and are very lightweight. Since we’ve…
Priming Small Parts
The new can of catalyst arrived today, but I couldn’t get the top off. The neck broke free from the can and was spinning with the lid. I poked a hole in the cap and forced the cap and neck off in one piece. I had a clean empty can from another product and was…
Cleaning Stringers
This morning I shaped some of the filler from yesterday. Over the past few years the stringers have gotten pretty nasty, and the texture of the paint was a little rough, so I cleaned them with some fine sandpaper. Now they are clean and smooth. This should help prevent catching and fraying the fabric when…
More Priming
I went out today to touch up a few more paint spots, but when I reached for an unopened can of catalyst I was surprised to find it was empty! Unfortunately it leaked sometime in the past couple of years, so I’ll have to take a break from painting until I can get more. Instead…
Priming Continued
When I got back to the hangar today I found a few spots where the paint was a little thin. I also saw that the texture under the paint was pretty rough in areas where the sandblasting started and ended. I sanded those spots in areas where they would show, then sprayed another coat.
Sand Blasting
We had a great time at Oshkosh as usual. We saw several old friends and met new ones too. It was hot, as you can see in this picture: I found a great deal on a set of Cessna style wheel pants. I’ll have to make the inboard brackets, but that shouldn’t be too hard….
Wingtip Light Mount
I stopped by today for one more measurement to make sure that the landing gear alignment is within tolerance, and it is. I cleaned up the hangar in preparation for round 2 of sandblasting, and applied a coat of smurf extract to the right wingtip position light mount and the stringer that required a relief…
Final Gear Alignment
Today was the day to bend the landing gear to fix the alignment. Here’s a picture of the measuring jig: Can you spot the problem with this arrangement? The right side sawhorse is in the way of the right axle. It’s going to be hard to get in there with the BATPISS to bend the…
Gear Alignment Continued
Today I was able to try measuring the main landing gear alignment with more sturdy steel angles. When I was shopping for them, I tried to find the straightest two in the store. The tiles on the store floor made a nice straight edge. Just to be sure that I didn’t have any bends in…
Main Landing Gear Alignment
Today I was able to start in earnest on the main landing gear alignment. I used three tiedown straps per side to make a rigid mount for the fuselage. One strap runs from the firewall station to the floor tiedown (which is right about where it would need to be to serve as a wing…
Soda Blasting
This is the third and final day in my bachelor building binge. The girls have been out of town and my goal was to press on to get the fuselage primed and ready for covering. Unfortunately this hasn’t worked out for a few reasons. The first is that I’m out of reducer for the expoxy…
More Disassembly
Today I carried on with the disassembly, in a marathon building session that would indicate that Tabitha is out of town. I took out the control sticks, elevator bellcrank, rudder pedals, headset wires, and other things like that. The wiring was going to be too much trouble to take out completely, so I just balled…
Taking it All Apart
My last session in the shop included putting almost all of the parts on the airplane, and my last entry here included flying in Dave’s Bearhawk. From those two highs, it’s time to carry on with progress and see a few lows. First I dug through my tubing scraps and was pleased to find one…
Antenna Planning
I was only out for a little while today, but I cleaned up the hangar and measured for a few of the coax cables. I was planning to use RG-58, but it turns out that some of the low-cost cable that I found wasn’t very good quality. Additionally, Bob Nuckolls has a pretty good deal…
Brake Lines
When I changed the configuration of the parking brake valve, my old brake lines became obsolete. I made new ones today out of 1/4″ 5052 aluminum tubing. I also reinstalled a few more of the floor panels in the front part of the cabin.
Mounting the Fuel Flow Transducer
I’ve decided to put the FT-90 Gold Cube fuel flow transducer aft of the firewall, between the gascolator and engine. It will end up being right under the pilot’s left foot. The wires come out of the top, so I made a bracket that will provide some space between the floorboard and the cube. I…
New ELT Antenna Bracket
Back a few years ago when I made and installed the antenna bracket for the ELT, I never got around to putting in a fairlead bushing. Now that I have, it’s a pretty loose fit. This is the third strike against this setup, with the incorrect height and limited cable clearance being the other two….
Control Cables and Fuel Lines
In the last entry I mentioned that the lower right fuel line was going to need an extension. This morning I added that extension and made a line from the fuel valve to the gascolator. Next I routed the upper flap cables, made new rudder cables, and routed the elevator trim cable. It became immediately…
Fuel Lines
Tonight I finished the left rear fuel line and started on a remake of the right front fuel line. The latest guidance from Bob says to put the T joint as low as possible, so I moved it down a few inches. The Patrol actually uses a tab that attaches in front of this station…
Flap Cables
Today was a brief session, but I was able to drill the left flap tube up to the final 3/16″ size for both bolts. I measured the length for the upper flap cables and made both of those, and started on the latest rework of the left aft fuel line that runs from the tank…
Prop Governor Gasket
Back when I was making a new bracket for the prop control, I had to remove the back of the governor to ajust the angle of the control arm. This disturbed the gasket from that area, so I tried to find a replacement. I wasn’t having much luck with Google, so I just called up…
Rudder Cable Decisions
This morning I spent a while organizing and cleaning up. I connected the rudder cables again, and found a slightly better way to connect the return spring. Instead of having it attach in line with the rudder cable, I drilled an extra hole in the pedal arm and moved the aft attach point down. In…
Wing Root Fairings
2012 is going to be the year of fairings. And hopefully the year that we fly this airplane! Today was a step in the right direction, with a few advances in the nebulous realm of “90% to go.” Fairings are some of the little parts that have to be made, but yet standing next to…
Cargo Door Gas Strut
I cleaned up and primed the fuel line support that I welded on last time: Then I made one just like it and installed it on the right. While I had the primer out I sprayed a coat on the intake scoop to see how my fiberglass work was coming along. Sometimes it’s hard to…
Riveting Baffles
Today I continued with the front baffles. First I drilled the angle support that connects the side baffle to the front. I also spent some time working on the steel structure that will support the new back left window. I needed to have a track for the bottom, so I tried bending some steel strips…
Oil Cooler Continued
I added the first layer of superfil on the windshield fairing, and another layer on the intake scoop. It will take several layers and lots of sanding to make them look reasonable. The oil cooler support will attach at the crankcase bolt just above the number 2 cylinder. I removed the original case bolt and…
Still More Fiberglass
This evening I worked on trimming the windshield fairing. I wanted to have an equal distance above and below the fold point, so I started by drawing a line along the the fold point. I used a square and a sharpie to mark a line along the fiberglass and used the belt sander to trim…
More Fiberglass
Today was a quick session. I added two more layers of fiberglass on the windshield and one more layer on the intake scoop.
Fiberglass Windshield Fairing
This morning I started on the fiberglass windshield fairing. First I applied contact paper to the windshield and boot cowl so that the epoxy wouldn’t stick to the expensive bits. Then I put a nice coat of automotive wax on the contact paper to make sure the epoxy didn’t stick to the inexpensive bits either….