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I’m a little envious as well! Most of the aircraft I’ve welded on looked like the attached photos (two PA-12s and a straight 108 Stinson). It’s rare to find one without corrosion, most of it is internal and only becomes visible after wire-wheeling. Two of these aircraft came in as flying...

The spars are slowly taking shape! Has anyone gotten guidance on the tolerance for the spar splice plates? When I was routing them out, I had the bit chatter and in polishing out the chatter marks they ended up 1/32" narrower than called for in the plans. Part of me says that 1/32" is not going...

That appears to be similar to the fit on the Lord Dynafocal engine mounts for my piper Cherokee, the outer ring of the mount does not touch the bushing. This is for the Dynafocal mount on a 1968 Piper Cherokee 140 with a Lyc 0320-E2A

Spar webs are bent!!! Plenty of learning happened of which first and foremost, do not assume that a regularly used brake is actually in adjustment. I was able to find a small local shop that had a brake in good shape, When I inquired about having my spar webs bent, the owner responded " I don't...

Has anyone else run into an issue on plans page 7 where the actual measurement differs from the call-out? I was copying the sketch with a light-box and engineering paper and noticed that it doesn't quite match up. The Main Spar Inner plate measures 5-7/8" where the call-out is 5-3/4" and the...

Center ribs are now primed and have stiffeners riveted on! All .024 ribs used AD3-3.5 rivets, I used AD3-4 for .032 ribs and AD3-5 for the root ribs. Pretty much all of them about a 1/2 size above what I had originally calculated. I also upgraded rivet guns. I had been using a surplus IR AVC12...

Making more progress! It is nice to have primer on some of the parts! Rather than the typical Etch - Alodyne - prime I am instead using PreKote since I have small children that tend to get into everything and PreKote isn't nearly as toxic. It seems to have advantages and disadvantages in that...

OK, time to fess up.. A couple weeks ago I was getting ready to begin making my rib stiffeners and as I was preparing to, there was an article in Kitplanes magazine about scalloping non-critical parts for weight savings (link below) After reading it, I built a test piece and figured that I...

Frank summed it up pretty well above with Budd Davidson's quote but ultimately everything is a trade off. Oxyfuel welding is better for bridging large gaps and is more tolerant of mill scale, rust, and other contaminants. Tig (If you want to use the current nomenclature GTAW) is much faster and...

I also don't believe there will be any issue with the extra material but I have not assembled my ailerons or flaps yet so have little to no authority to provide feedback on it. If you decide to, you can easily trim your blocks with a router. Get a 1/2" flush trim router bit and replace the...

Thank you Brooks and Gerald for your feedback, I greatly appreciate your input. Progress is still being made, I am very close to priming but wanted to complete all ribs first to minimize the number of times I have to set up a paint booth. Aileron pocket ribs and flap nose ribs are now complete...

Hey y'all! I just put together a quick video of using the Bob stick for flattening my end ribs. I haven't seen this technique described in any other videos however I believe it is the method Bob describes in the Bearhawk Book so I can't take any credit for development of it. Hope this is able...

Where did the summer go? Between family, projects, work, and overhauling the engine in my Cherokee, I did not have time to put much effort into the BearHawk but with summer coming to a close I am able to begin making progress once again. The .032 ribs and short ribs are complete, I rebuilt...

Is this a recent change or just on the factory built spars? My BH5 plans show a .032 web thickness. ​

Lookie who showed up at KPUW!​ 21" bender is complete and adjusted MAJOR shout out to airpartsinc.com Not only were they cheaper than ACS and several others, the metal showed up in perfect condition. The .020 and 024 I received from ACS was good and the outside of the .032 looked...

It has been a while since the last update, progress has slowed temporarily due to work and family but I have not completely been sitting on my laurels. I put in an order to Airparts inc. for what should be nearly all of the remaining aluminum for the Bearhawk, I planned to try to get it locally...

Aileron ribs are finished!! ​ With them complete I moved on to adding the fluting notches to the flap formblock: The first rib had the center flange buckle, I had it clamped in the vise but with the positioning of the lightening hole there was not enough material to prevent the stress from...

So.. I began wondering what I was missing out on by pressing the flanges instead of bob-sticking them. I learned that curiosity doesn't kill the cat but it might give it a case of carpal tunnel... I tried on an aileron rib so that if I messed it up I would not cause any major loss of material...

More progress, and learning opportunities :) Good news first: I finished all Aileron nose ribs, after some tweaking of my formblock they turned out exactly per the fullsize drawing in my plans! When I initially created my formblock I had apparently not been precisely on the line. This...

Welcome! It seems we share much of the same background and reaction to the 5'! I had been looking at several other aircraft including the Zenith 801, until I too discovered the Bearhawk 5. There just is not anything that I have run across that compares. They are expensive and not really proven...