BearHawk 5 school of construction

[Sir Newton]

Just some more cheerleading from me doing my best to be encouraging to all builders. Lots of parts building going on here. 12 more right hand nose ribs to go 🍻 Everything is 100%!

[Westward_Flyer]

Stunning work, those look professionally done! And thank you for sharing your progress I'm enjoying following along.

[Sir Newton]

Just some more simple cheerleading right and left nose ribs completed they are considered parts ready for paint!

[Sir Newton]

Sheet metal clamp order received! Should get me started?
300- 3/32 x 0-1/4 grip,
200 - 1/8 x 0-1/2 grip,
50 - 1/8 x 1/2-3/4 grip,
50 - 5/32 x 0-1/2 grip,
50 - 5/32 x 1/2-3/4 grip,
20 - 3/16 x 0-1/2 grip 2 pairs of celeco plyers

[davzLSA]

I recommend you get a pneumatic cleco tool, after I built my RV wings I got a bad case of carpel tunnel. You will take those things in and out a million times before you are done.

[Sir Newton]

Big day of folding up 2024-T3 spars. All of them are now complete. We should be able to live with a fit like this what does the judges panel think? :cool: The fit should work! Eh👍cheers to all the builders on the forum.

[way_up_north]

looks great....

what source you using for your bending formula? what you found in the build manual or Tony Bingelis...ect.....the bend looks great and your work very professional...

[Sir Newton]

General cheerleading myself onto completion. The center ribs are a formidable amount of work I finally got mine roughed out now I have to straightening them all. Happy holidays everyone. We Can Do It;):cool:

[Sir Newton]

Hello all you crazy airplane enthusiast:cool: Just some more cheerleading from the BH5 builder's corner. I can not believe it. I have completed forming wing ribs! Every part has been straightened. Yay beers around the house! Time to complete 450hrs. Completely encourage anyone to tackle this task.

[rodsmith]

That is great progress and looks like outstanding workmanship!

[Sir Newton]

More cheerleading! Now we are on to main spar construction. Before any holes get drilled! Lay out is the 1st item on the list. May I suggest picking yourself up a drafting kit sold at most college bookstores. It makes life alot easier dimensioning Bob's blueprints. I have decided to use a metal cutting saw to cut the 0.125 x 1.25 cap stripping material. Please note that this is a high speed steel cutting saw not a regular electric circular hand saw. It makes a big difference at what speed the blade runs at this saw is giving me and extremely clean precise cut.

[N3UW]

For cutting aluminum, you can use a good quality standard circular saw with a good carbide blade designed for aluminum (just a different tooth layout than a standard wood crosscut or rip blade). I used a festool track saw to cut all my skins to rough and final dimensions. Works much better than snips or shear. I cut on top of a piece of 1/2 MDF, OSB or 2” foam cutting cutting through the AL and into the backing board 1/16-1/8”. I use a vac connected to the saw to suck up chips. Very clean cut that needs very little clean up. The circular saw to cut the cap strips was recommended by Bob. I also use a chop saw with AL blade to cut all the bar to length. With a chop saw just make sure you use a zero clearance fence, made of some scrap plywood, to keep cutoffs from getting caught by blade and flying around.

[Sir Newton]

N3UW, 100% agree. The saw I used is defiantly over kill for the job of cutting cap 0.125 strips . I had the saw laying around is all. The main reason I even posted about how I cut the cap strips is actually in PROTEST to the outrageous price of 2024-T3 flat bar!

[N3UW]

Sir Newton. Great work you are doing. I completely agree with all you are doing to cut AL. I had to buy those overly expensive cap strips because I did not discover the circular saw cuts early on. I did help a friend cut his from sheet material. Quite easy. You may want to consider making yourself a cutting guide for your saw similar to a track. Back a few year again I posted about what I did and a link to a video for making it. Here is the body of the message.
I have cut a bunch of aluminum with a circular saw. All you need is a good carbide non-Ferris blade and a long enough straight edge. I use a festool tracksaw but a regular circular saw will work well. A while back i cut all the cap strips needed for two patrols in under an hour. . Very little cleanup needed on the pieces. Bob says this is how he does it himself. Here is what you need.

first you need a saw setup. Making a track saw is easy. Here is a video from this old house that shows one way.
https://youtu.be/rbTvzViDZmo

then you need the circular saw, the proper blade and a table.

For the table, make a table long enough that you can hold the full sheet of aluminum. I used a couple of pieces of OSB on top of saw horses with 12’ 2x4 under for support. The osb will be used hold the AL sheet and also allow the saw to cut about 1/16” into the osb so the cut is clean on the AL and will also prevent the saw from catching on the AL.

Place the AL on the table so that where the cut is will be over the OSB. You want to make sure you cut into the OSB. Now mark the AL and setup the track and clamp down. Set the saw depth so that it cuts through the AL and only about 1/16 or so into th OSB. You do not want to cut all the way through the osb. If you have the ability to hook a shop vac to th circular saw, it makes less flying AL chips. No simply saw through it. For me I cut through the entire 12’ length in under 30 seconds. Cuts like I was cutting through hardboard. Make sure you are wearing eye protection. I just ran a vixen file done the edge once to take off an stress risers,

I use the same method to cut all wing skins also.

If you use the OSB subsurface, track for the saw and proper blade, you will be surprised with how easy and clean cutting this method works. There is actually less cleanup with the saw cut than with a shear. I have cut a bunch of aluminum with a circular saw. All you need is a good carbide non-Ferris blade and a long enough straight edge. I use a festool tracksaw but a regular circular saw will work well. A while back i cut all the cap strips needed for two patrols in under an hour. . Very little cleanup needed on the pieces. Bob says this is how he does it himself. Here is what you need.

first you need a saw setup. Making a track saw is easy. Here is a video from this old house that shows one way.
https://youtu.be/rbTvzViDZmo

then you need the circular saw, the proper blade and a table.

For the table, make a table long enough that you can hold the full sheet of aluminum. I used a couple of pieces of OSB on top of saw horses with 12’ 2x4 under for support. The osb will be used hold the AL sheet and also allow the saw to cut about 1/16” into the osb so the cut is clean on the AL and will also prevent the saw from catching on the AL.

Place the AL on the table so that where the cut is will be over the OSB. You want to make sure you cut into the OSB. Now mark the AL and setup the track and clamp down. Set the saw depth so that it cuts through the AL and only about 1/16 or so into th OSB. You do not want to cut all the way through the osb. If you have the ability to hook a shop vac to th circular saw, it makes less flying AL chips. No simply saw through it. For me I cut through the entire 12’ length in under 30 seconds. Cuts like I was cutting through hardboard. Make sure you are wearing eye protection. I just ran a vixen file done the edge once to take off an stress risers,

I use the same method to cut all wing skins also.

If you use the OSB subsurface, track for the saw and proper blade, you will be surprised with how easy and clean cutting this method works. There is actually less cleanup with the saw cut than with a shear.

[Sir Newton]

How did those cap strip turn out? What you can expect. Looking at the photos of the cut strips. You can see that the 1st strip that I cut off the 4'x12' sheet had some residential edge stress left in it from the T3 tempering process. The little twist in #1 strip making it unacceptable. The next 13 strips that I cut off are as straight as an arrow, well within acceptable tolerances. Final width dimensions 1.255- 1.275. & There is enough material left over from the 4x12 sheet for a second set of cap strips. Cheers to ya all!

[way_up_north]

a few more questions for you about the Evolution saw

there does not seem to be many retailers selling the saw in Canada, on the Homedepot.ca site they have a saw but its an orange version that does not seem to have the guide like your model has. Did you buy it directly from Evolution?...Amazon.ca does have it but I thought id ask you to see if there was a Canadian seller I could support...the amazon model looks like an similar version of yours

https://www.amazon.ca/Evolution-Powe.../dp/B003TX1UPO

did you cut all you spar C channel with that saw also...I was wondering if it could handle that thin material if it was supported and the guides go that wide....or did you use a shear or other method to make those

does your evolution saw have 2 parallel guides for the front and back...or one guide the whole saw length..it looks like there is different guides between models..

Thanks

[Glenn Patterson]

Perfect looking ribs. You have a long way to go so make sure you have the radio on and do not take any long breaks. Breaks grow into weeks then months. It takes discipline to cross the finish lines. We hung pictures of nice looking Bearhawks and other aircraft that had features that we would like to use as a visual goal. Most important if you have a wife and/or family make sure that you still make time for them. Celebrate those MVP days and hoist an occasional beer to the milestone. (MVP=Major Visual Progress). You are off to an excellent start being able to build quality parts as it will give an amazing set of wings. I grin every time I look down our wings as they are clean smooth pieces of art that started out the same as you have. Plan, look ahead and have the materials waiting so the work flows through all its stages seamlessly. Congratulations on a great start.

[Sir Newton]

Thank-you for the reply. I realize now building a plane is a fairly serious project. My goals are not to make any mistakes that will set me back or have any Do Overs. Working on spars right now. I need to decide on what primer to use before I start riveting cap strips.

[Sir Newton]

More general cheerleading here. Finished off making the parts on the 7B drawing. Completed in 10hrs.All sanded up nice & smooth. No notchs anywhere.

[Sir Newton]

Spar layout & construction. I struggled with the possibility of being out of alignment front to back, drilling an incorrect sized hole in the wrong spot. Who knows! I am confident I could find away to make a mistake. Simply because the Main & Rear Spar share so many common measurements between them. So this is my solution. I made one pattern for both main & rear spars that are associated with each other on a full scale 8" x 8" x 15' piece of scrap I had laying around. This will also serve as a pattern during the assembly riveting process. Hit that like button if you find this stuff interesting! Cheers & happy building.

[MitchG]

Appreciate the detailed pics! Please keep them coming.

[Sir Newton]

Figure I post a weekend cheerleading picture. All layouts have been confirmed & drilling has commenced. Used a laser level to level the entire assembly up. So far the is good! Hair straight back. However I did start with the rear spars caps. Lol cheapest material if I do have a screw up:rolleyes:

[Sir Newton]

Hello, we have had some really cold weather here in CYQU - 45°C Craziness. However no fear here! We are all done pre drilling all spar caps. Moved on to jig construction. Here are some pictures of how the progress is going. Any questions feel free to ask or DM me would be best. Not overly talented at typing.