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Builder Name:Dustin Holstein   -  
Project:   Bearhawk - "B"   -   VIEW REPORTS
Total Hours:164.5
Total Flight Time:
Total Expense:$6442.89
Start/Last Date:Oct 25, 2019 - No Finish Date
 
Friendly URL: https://eaabuilderslog.org?s=dholstein

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Oct 03, 2023     Cap Strip Pilot Holes - (8.0 hours)       Category: Wings
On this entry of building a Bearhawk 4 place aircraft, I mark up the remaining station locations on the rear spar and drill pilot holes for all 8 rear spar cap strips.


 
Sep 27, 2022     Marking up the Rear Spar and Pre-Drilling One Cap Strip - (4.5 hours)       Category: Wings
On this entry of building a Bearhawk 4 place aircraft, I mark up the station/rib locations on the rear spar, drill the wing root attachment holes through the spar webs and attachment brackets, cut the inboard spar web to length, and pre-drill one of the rear spar cap strips with a 3/32" drill bit.


 
Feb 11, 2022     Strut Pass Through Slot, Painting, and Final Riveting of the Left Main Spar - (9 hours)       Category: Wings
On this entry of building a Bearhawk 4 place aircraft, I spent 9 hours on a combination of items on the left wing main spar. I cut the slot out for the strut attachment bracket pass through, drilled the 1/4 inch steel holes for the strut attachment bracket, primed all the individual pieces, and riveted the whole thing together!


 
Jan 19, 2022     Left Wing Main Spar Attachment Bracket and Center Splice - (3.5 hours)       Category: Wings
On this entry of the Bearhawk 4 Place build, I match drill the holes for the Left wing main spar attachment bracket as well as drill the holes for the center splice and splice spacers. This was predominantly drilling the #21 holes for the rivets as well as the 3/8" and 1/4" holes at the wing root and center splice.


 
Dec 19, 2021     Prepping The Left Wing Spar for Primer - (5.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Over the past few days/weeks, I began the initial steps towards prepping the left main spar for self etching primer. This included disassembling the left spar, removing the protective plastic, deburring all of the holes, scuffing the face of the spar webs and cap strips, and drilling out the lightening holes.


 
Nov 17, 2021     Drilling Out Bad Rivets Right Main Spar - (2 hours)       Category: Wings
I spent the past 2 hours being nervous about drilling out the smiley faced rivets I had done on the main spar and finally drilling them out to replace with new rivets that were within compliance of my check gauge.


 
Sep 25, 2021     Primed Main Spar Parts for the Right Wing - (2.1 hours)       Category: Wings
Today was a painting day. I spent 2 hours painting the Main Spar Attachment Brackets for the right wing as well as the main spar.


 
Aug 08, 2021     Right Main Spar Paint Prep - (1.5 hours)       Category: Wings
I spent another 1.5 hours working on scuffing up the right main spar and attachment brackets in preparation for priming and final assembly. Lowes is still out of Rustoleum self etching primer so I may need to shop around for some.


 
Jul 26, 2021     Disassembly and a Few More Cuts - (1.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Today, I spent 1.5 hours working on disassembling the right main spar to cut out the main spar attachment point as well as prepare it for scuffing and priming. The scuffing can take place fairly quickly however Lowes is currently out of self etching primer so I may need to shop around for some.


 
Jun 13, 2021     Drilled Main Spar Lightening Holes - Right Wing - (1.3 hours)       Category: Wings
Today, I drilled out all the lightening holes in the main spar using hole saws I bought from Lowes. The main spar predominantly has 5 inch diameter holes but there is one hole at the wing root that is 4 inches in diameter and a hole near the center splice that is 4.5 inches in diameter.

I also used my files to file out the main strut attachment bracket pass through so that there is clearance for the strut attachment bracket to pass through without rubbing on the spar web.


 
May 29, 2021     Drilled Spar Attachment Brackets and Center Splice Spacers - (3.0 hours)       Category: Wings
Today, I drilled out all the holes in the spar attachment bracket where the spar connects to the Fuselage as well as made the 1/8th inch thick Center Splice spacers. The majority of the task today was simply measuring 10 times and drilling once…


 
May 23, 2021     Finished Forming and Drilling the Wing Strut Attachment Brackets - (8.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Because I got carried away with sanding down the original bracket that I made, I decided to turn that into a template to make all 4 wing strut attachment brackets. Below you can see the progression of me using a thin cutting wheel on my grinder to cut out the 4 rough cuts of the brackets. I then used a grinder and my belt sander with an 80-grit paper to round off everything. I did this with al 4 brackets clamped together to make sure that it was as symmetrical as possible.

One thing to note is that I wanted additional attachment surface area on the top spar cap strip of the wing so I made that rectangular section in order to hold 2 bolts rather than 1. Using my paper template, my harbor freight drill press, and a can of WD-40, I pre drilled the 5 holes through all 4 pieces at once with a 1/8in drill bit followed by a 1/4in drill bit. The hole where the strut actually attaches to the wing is actually 3/8 in size so I final sized that hole during this process as well.

Finally, I slotted the bottom of the spar web to make room for the bracket to line up correctly, clamped both splice plates, the spacer plates and the brackets together and started drilling through everything. Glad to say that this worked and everything lines up perfectly.


 
May 09, 2021     Spar Splices and 1st Strut Attachment Bracket - (5 hours)       Category: Wings
I started drilling my center splice plates with the 38 rivets that attach everything together. I marked the rivet holes with a sharpie and then match drilled the whole through all 4 using my drill press. I then atch drilled the holes into the spar web.

In addition to the splice plate, I started making the first wing strut bracket out of the .19 in 4130 steel sheet that I have. One thing is obvious, I need to get a cut off tool. My old one burnt up and i used an oscillating tool, saws all, and ultimately ended up using a Dremel. Making the one piece took 3 hours. This was a rough cut and I will be smoothing out the piece to make the edges straight as well as rounding the edges of the bracket before making the remaining 4 brackets.


 
Apr 28, 2021     Marked Center Splice Hole Locations - (9 hours)       Category: Wings
Pretty straight forward process of marking the holes where the center splice rivets get set. I had to figure out where each of the holes gets placed by referencing the drawings and calculating the position based off it's correlation to a reference point.

The next couple steps required the spar to be laying flat which meant disassembling the main spars from my temporary clamps and removing the clecos holding everything together in what became a 1.5 hour ordeal.

I then deburred all of the holes on the spar webs, cap strips, and attachment brackets and temporarily placed AN470AD5-16 rivets to hold everything together. This combined with measuring 5 times before marking up the Bearhawk 4 Place Center Splice Brackets was the main consumption of time on this portion of the build with the deburring taking 3 hours and the mark up taking 1.5

The remaining 3 hours since my last update were spent on the wing root ribs and riveting those pieces together.


 
Apr 02, 2021     Center Ribs Riveted - (3.7 hours)       Category: Wings
I ended up splitting up the riveting of the center ribs across 2 days. The 24 center ribs along with the 28 nose ribs that I riveted are now ready for assembly onto the main spar once I complete painting and riveting it together. There are 4 more ribs to rivet together, each wing has two ribs that get riveted back to back. Adding dollars as I seem to have forgot to add dollars on a previous post.


 
Mar 29, 2021     Painted Center Ribs and Stiffeners - (2.7 hours)       Category: Wings
It has been a long couple of weeks where I was working on other projects and it was ultimately too cold to paint. Today, not only was my garage empty from the various projects but it was also warm enough to paint so I painted all the center ribs and rib stiffeners with Rustoleum self etching primer.


 
Feb 04, 2021     Center Ribs and Stiffeners Deburred - (1.7 hours)       Category: Wings
Relatively easy day where I deburred all of the 1,680 holes I drilled into the center ribs and stiffeners using my rotary deburring tool. With the weather coming in this weekend, I most likely will not be able to get out side and prime the pieces but that will happen hopefully in the first couple days of next week.


 
Feb 03, 2021     Center Rib Stiffeners Match Hole Drilled - (3.2 hours)       Category: Wings
Over the past 3 days, I have been working on match hole drilling the stiffeners so that they line up with the center ribs. This meant lining up 3 stiffeners on each of the 28 ribs and re drilling the 420 total holes using a #40 drill bit. Pretty straight forward stuff but very tedious over all.


 
Jan 31, 2021     Finished Making Center Rib Stiffeners - (7.0 hours)       Category: Wings
Today was a big day for project Bearhawk with me putting in 7 hours of work over the course of 11AM to 7PM with lunch and dinner breaks. I cut up the 28 pieces of 24in x 1in strips of 2024 aluminum into 9, 8, and 7 inch sections for each of the center rib stiffeners resulting in a total of 84 stiffeners. I then scuffed them, bent them to 90 degrees on my brake, drilled the 5 rivet holes per stiffener (420 holes), cut the clearance cuts at 45 degrees, and sanded down the burrs/sharp edges of the pieces. I had to do this same process for the nose ribs although back then, there was only 1 stiffener per rib and each stiffener only had 4 holes.


 
Jan 30, 2021     Finished Scuffing Center Ribs - (4.8 hours)       Category: Wings
I broke the scuffing of the center ribs up into 3 days. Ariel and I scuffed together on the 26th for 2.5 hours. I then scuffed for another 1.5 hours yesterday and I finished up the scuffing this morning with a final .75 hours of work. I was struggling with how labor intensive the process was to prepare the pieces for paint. I ended up getting some “abrasive balls” from harbor freight in both 180 grit and 400 grit. I only had to use the 400 grit ball and it made quick work of the wide surfaces of the ribs. You still need standard scuffing pads to get into the nooks and crannies so I recommend both along with a bunch of batteries/big compressor for using a drill.


 
Jan 23, 2021     Scuffed Mid Ribs - (2.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Ariel finally decided to help me on the Bearhawk 4 place build by assisting in scuffing up the middle ribs with 320 grit scotch bright pads. We got through the eight .032 ribs which are now ready for stiffener holes to be drilled and then primed.


 
Jan 16, 2021     Riveted Nose Rib Stiffeners - (2.0 hours)       Category: Wings
Finally accomplished the first permanent installation of a piece for the Bearhawk 4 place project by riveting the rib stiffeners for the 32 nose ribs. This task used 128 MS20470AD-3-4 rivets (3/32 inch diameter x 1/4 inch long). I purchased a quarter pound of rivets which is around 750 total. I also used my 3x rivet gun instead of a rivet squeezer to speed up the process and get comfortable handling the rivet gun.


 
Jan 15, 2021     Primed Nose Ribs - (1 hour)       Category: Wings
Finally got around to finishing the priming of the 32 nose ribs for my Bearhawk 4 place. I was delayed due to cold temps and high winds. I used Rustoleum Self Etching primer from Lowes and it required just over 3 cans to cover all the pieces.


 
Jan 03, 2021     Prepped Nose Ribs for Primer - (5 hours)       Category: Wings
I spent 5 hours on what some would consider an optional task… prepping the bearhawk 4 place nose ribs for primer. I am doing this because I don't want to have internal corrosion in the back of my head when flying this plane in the future and it will help resale value if i ever do end up selling it especially if it is to someone on the coast where the weather is much more humid.

I used a 320 grit scotch-brite pad to scuff the surface of my aluminum parts for the paint to stick to the metal.


 
Dec 12, 2020     Match Drilled Nose Rib Stiffener Holes - (2.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Today, I was able to round off the nose rib stiffeners and match drill the rib stiffener holes into the nose ribs of my Bearhawk wings. That meant re drilling each of the 128 holes I did a couple days ago by clamping the stiffener to the rib and going one by one with a hand drill. I was also able to deburr all of the holes on the ribs however I still need to take a piece of sandpaper to the actual bracket before priming and riveting.


 
Dec 10, 2020     Drilling and Cutting 45 Degrees in Rib Stiffeners - (1.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Today I drilled the 4 holes of each nose rib stiffener using a little jig I made on the drill press. I then cut the corners of the non drilled leg of the angles so that I would have clearance when riveting the skin to the rib at a later date.


 
Dec 09, 2020     Braking Rib Stiffeners to 90 degrees - (1 hour)       Category: Wings
Finally got to put the brake functionality of my harbor freight tool to work. I cut each nose rib stiffener to 6 inches using the sheer and then used the brake to set the angle at 90 degrees for each stiffener. there are 32 total however I made 35 pieces due to the threat of an inevitable mistake.


 
Dec 06, 2020     Cutting Rib Stiffener Material to Size - (2 hours)       Category: Wings
It was a tedious day but I got to try out my metal sheer/metal brake/metal roller combo from harbor freight. I chopped up a 2ft x 4ft sheet of .025 inch thick 2024 aluminum into 36 individual 1 inch strips. These strips will then be cut to length according to the width of the rib they will get attached to and will then be folded at a 90 degree angle on the half inch mark and riveted into place to stiffen the rib and reduce twist.


 
Dec 03, 2020     Rib Spacers and Spar Webs Match Drilled - (5 hours)       Category: Wings
This is actually a post about the past 3 days. I drilled the remaining 216 holes that go through each of the rib spacers on both wings. It took me 2 hours per wing spread out over 12/1 - 12/2 and another hour to match drill the remaining 96 holes in the spar webs on 12/3. I will deburr the spar webs another day when I can remove the blue protective plastic from the parts and clean up the metal filings.


 
Nov 27, 2020     Rib Spacer Center Holes Drilled - (3.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Today, I spent 3.5 hours figuring out how I was going to mock up, center and drill the center holes for both wings on the front and back of the main spars so that everything more or less lined up. I measured the center point of each front spacer and marked that location with my center punch. then drilled the 22 holes on my drill press. I then clamped the spacers to the spar lined up with the cap strips and drilled through the existing spacer hole to the spar web. I then removed the front spacer and clamped the rear spacer to the spar to that the centerline of each spacer lined up with the hole in the spar web and center punched each of those so that I could drill the holes on my drill press.

Everything got deburred and mocked up to make sure it fit. Next steps will be to clamp the pair of front/back spacers together with the center holes lined up and drill the remaining 4 holes on each spacer.


 
Nov 24, 2020     Right Wing Rib Spacers cut to length - (1.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Tonight, I cut the remaining rib spacers to length for the right wing both front and back. Each spacer is made to fit the specific rib location which is why the are numbered 1-12, front and rear, left and right, and in some cases short and long for the front face of the spar web.


 
Nov 23, 2020     Left Wing Rib Spacers Cut to Length - (2 hours)       Category: Wings
Tonight, I cut my rib spacers to length for the left wing. There are 11 spacers on the front of the wing spar and 12 on the back going from 1/8 inch thick near the wing root and tip of the spar and 1/4 inch thick in the center areas due to the thickness of the cap strips changing.

On the front of the wing spar, the first 3 spacers are 2 layers thick of 1/4 inch aluminum so that the rib can sit flush against the surface that has 2 cap strips on the top vs 1 on the bottom.

Hours worked tonight: 2
Total hours: 37.5


 
Oct 08, 2020     Drilled all Cap Strips to Final Size - (3.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Today I finished drilling all the cap strips to the final hole size with a #21 drill bit.


 
Oct 06, 2020     Finished Drilling 1/8 inch Pilot Holes - (3.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Late last night, I was able to complete the drilling of all the 1/8 inch pilot holes for the cap strips on both the left and right wing main spars. Total time spent marking up, centerpunching, lining up and drilling: 10.5 hours.


 
Oct 03, 2020     Center Punched and Started Drilling Cap Strip Holes - (7 hours)       Category: Wings
I center punched all the rivet locations on the cap strips for the main spar and started drilling the pilot holes for the left wing. I was forced to stop because my drill press was overheating.


 
Sep 26, 2020     Measured and marked rivet locations - (3 hours)       Category: Wings
Today, I measured and marked all rivet locations with a fine tip marker. I also marked the three stations A, B, and C for the flap hinges on the main spar as well as station D and E for the aileron hinges.


 
Sep 19, 2020     Right Wing Spar Cap Mock Up - (2 hours)       Category: Wings
Today, I mocked up the right wing main spar cap strips and drilled cleco holes at the wing root and center splice locations to hold everything together. The right wing took two hours whereas the left wing took 3.5.


 
Sep 07, 2020     Drilled Initial Cleco Locations for Left Wing Spar Caps - (3.5 hours)       Category: Wings
Drilled 1/8 inch holes at future rivet locations located at wing root and splice plate to hold the spar caps into place and onto the main spar webs. I damaged (mis-drilled) a spar cap in the process due to me being tired and will redo the 71.5 inch front rear cap strip.


 
Aug 23, 2020     Trimmed Cap strips to Length - (5 hours)       Category: Wings
Today, I trimmed the spar web cap strips to length per the plans and loosely clamped up the left wing. Will have to purchase more clamps as well as assemble the tables I have before continuing with the rest of the wing spar mock up pre drilling


 
Jul 08, 2020     Fluted Wing ribs - (2 hours)       Category: Wings
I fluted the wing ribs to make them lay flat on a surface using the specialized fluting pliers.


 
Jul 07, 2020     Marked Skin Rivet Locations - (2 hours)       Category: Wings
I received my wing ribs end of June and started marking the locations where the skin would get riveted to the the wing ribs to avoid fluting on those spots.


 
Jun 17, 2020     Measured and Cut Main Spars to Length - (3 hours)       Category: Wings
Per the Bearhawk Build plans, today I cut the inboard section of the main spar to the designated 86.19 inches from the spar attachment plate. I used a metal cutting disc attached to my Dremel, then filed and sanded down the rough edge to a smooth finish. Measured out and cut the outboard sections of the main spars to length. Overall length of each main wing spar is 172 3/4 inches. I have ordered the spar cap strips and those will be here shortly.


 
Jun 11, 2020     Main Spars Have Arrived and I Started Drilling - (1 hour)       Category: Wings
I drilled the first holes for the main spar fuselage attachment bolts at 1/8 inches. They will be widened at a later date.


 


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