BearHawk 5 school of construction

[Sir Newton]

It is alodine, I had a chat with our local inspector today about priming before his pre-cover inspection, He did not care one way or the other. So I will use Endura EPC2 sealing primer when the day comes to prime the wings. I am pleased with how the spars came out. I am fabricating a jig to help assemble the wings ribs to the spars.
Cheers Gerry your comments are really appreciated thank-you

[geraldmorrissey]

Curious, what primer did you use? Looks gold, like alodine in the photo. Great job.
Gerry
Patrol #30

[Sir Newton]

We have passed a major milestone. The wing spars have been completed. If I had to guess it took in and around 300 hours to complete all 4 wing spars. I have kept a detailed log so if anyone cares about the exact time. I could figure it out. Build on Bearhawkers! BUILD ON!

[Sir Newton]

Bcone1381, lol, Yes I am. I even bought 2 rolls of 3/4. I am just to cheap to use it.
I watching Mike Patey bending spars on his UT channel. Mike looks like a ton of fun!
After his video I have decided to model up my wings in Solid Works to run an FEA

[Bcone1381]

Looks Good!! All those individual pieces of tape look time consuming to install. Are you familiar with Rivet Tape? Put One long piece over all the rivets. https://www.yardstore.com/rivet-tape-1

[Sir Newton]

This is what the RH main spar looks like up on the jig after I stuffed proper length rivets into every single hole ! before I start bucking rivets. There is a celeco every tenth hole. The masking tape is needed to hold rivets in place while you start to buck rivets. LH main took 12 hrs to buck all the rivets RH should be quicker with some experience under our belts. Cheer enjoy your week end.

[Sir Newton]

Hello BearHawkers, Just some general cheerleading here. SO, Riveting on LH main & rear spars are complete. The spars came out straight as an arrow they are prefect! May I highly recommend using a jig similar to the one I built. I do not want to over step here, however the jig works like a hot dam. The electrical strut I used to celeco the spar to are at the Stations A, B, D, & E. Now we are working on bucking all the RH spar rivets. If any one has any questions. Just ask. I really like chatting about BearHawk anything. cheers !

[Bcone1381]

Best Practice.....There are several folk who have written material. Russ Erb, Eric Newton, The Patrol Book, probably a score and a half of Beartracks articles. Is the Bob Stick the best practice for flanging a rib lightening hole, or wood dies in a press or a female wood die and a rubber press?

Those of you with a career of fabrication experience....you are fabricating about 2000 hours a year....20 years is 40,000 hours of experience....are I think are very well suited to guide the "Bearhawk plans built Best Practice of Fabrication" Also, as we move ahead into the digital age, the Best Practices will change. CNC routing, and 3d printing using Solid Works data will change "Best Practices" in the future I think. If we can convince Bob that his design will remain Copy Write Protected is might happen faster.

Its all about improvement of the completion rate.

[Sir Newton]

Senor Bcone1381
The 30 min time frame I refer to in post# 43 is not from a raw rib blank. It took me 30 minutes per rib was to fabricate & anodyne the 0.025 stiffeners & install them on each rib. All parts sanded & deburred. No short cuts taken. Today I finished off 1-14 LH main rib stiffeners. I should tell you that I am a journeyman welder & steamfitter with 25+yrs in the trade of metal fabrication. 1st time working with this light gage aluminum though. I agree with you about standardizing "Industry Best Practices"
I thought someone had wrote a book/ instruction manual on how to build BearHawks & was selling it to everyone already? To date I have spent 719 hrs on this project proper. That would include making material list, ordering material, & fabrication. I am not sure if you could call that fast.

[Bcone1381]

Sir Newton;

The progress you are making is astonishing to me. It took me a year to fabricate a set of ribs. Would you share some details with the group how you can go from a rib blank to a rib with ready to install while spending 30 minutes each on them?

BTW, I often think to myself "using today tools and technology, can we standardize and declare "Industry Best Practices"?" Meaning what is the best way to do a job with the least effort, having the best result in order that we can improve our (meaning Builders of Bearhawks) completion rate, and get a completed airframe out the door in less than 10 years. It looks to me like your spar and rib production is achieving that goal.

[Sir Newton]

I have something to admit, I am addicted to building BearHawks. Picked up Patrol plans. Project #2

[Sir Newton]

Greetings to my fellow builders. Just general project cheerleading here, Attached are pictures of RH main rib with all the stiffeners ready of riveting. It took roughly 30 mins per rib to fabricate, drill holes, prepare with anodyne & install the stiffeners. Slow & steady progress every week is the goal. LH ribs next week & maybe receive my rivet order from Hanson. Cheers All

[Sir Newton]

Thank-you for the supporting comments you guys.

[rv8bldr]

Those look awesome. And I am incredibly envious of both the amount of space you have to work in and the real-man tools I see in the background :-)

[way_up_north]

Sir Newton... great progress...!!