Painted!

Spent two hours painting the remainder of the hangar floor.


We will come back later to touch up with brushes.


Looks really good!

More Floor Painting

The whole family returned to put down another gallon of Glidden Antique Silver. We painted a walkway next to the door to facilitate egress when we are painting the entrance next time.

We also used a special primer to prepare the central area previously subjected to oil drips. We will paint there next.

Project time unknown but probably at least 2.5 hours, including moving furniture beforehand.

Also, I have been working on repair of the tamper mentioned in the last post. We are almost ready for the interference fit of the handle into the head.

Landlord Wrangling

Went to the airport office to file proof of liability insurance and request repairs/upgrades. Mixed success. The door may get fixed tomorrow but I was told the dust curtain is a "cosmetic" issue and therefore not the city's bailiwick. The ceiling vent may get installed before Jan. 11 if they can find a better contractor.

Diversion: Tamper

Spent an hour or more attempting to repair the tamper whose handle snapped off several posts ago.

Vic may be pleased that I got some use out of his mitre saw, but only to cut the handle off clean. The hard part is getting the wood out of the tamper head socket, which is several inches deep. I am mostly done, thanks to a 1" spade bit and a dull hole saw.

Antique Silver

Is the color we ended up with for the floor. Shown is the result of about two hours' work by Lisa and me, with 1 gallon of semi-gloss latex.

Salt Lake Meetup

Don and I made our Bearhawk travel plans today, and will be meeting in Utah for the flight up to Helena on the 7th of January, in a Canadair regional jet.  I will be flying from LA to Salt Lake, and Don will be flying separately from the Varner Compound in an undisclosed location in the American Southwest.

From the airport in Montana's capitol, it's only 3 miles to the Budget truck location.  Then we'll use the truck for local transportation.

Just How Big is that Tin Truck?

Today at lunch I ran over to Budget with my 8' tape measure and measured a 24' rental truck (the same size truck is available in Helena, Montana).  The good news is that the Bearhawk should fit in the truck.  The bad news is that we still have to figure out how to get it up the ramp, which is too narrow for the airplane's main gear.

Project time ~ 0.8 hours.

What a Puny Plan

Yesterday: more illness, and a pre-dawn trip to the ER for Brandon. Turned out to be an ear infection. What I'm trying to say is no airplane work yesterday.

Today 0.2 hours of cleanup for floor paint. I'll hold off on buying paint until the day we'll use it.

Bearhawk transport concepts:

A) Fly to Montana, take off wings, stow plane in 24' Budget moving van. Drive home. Problem: doors reported to be 7' tall, while this Bearhawk is 7'3" (thanks to extra long landing gear. Need to get an actual door measurement at my local Budget lot.

B) Buy or rent a trailer.

C) Hire an airplane mover. $$$.

A Fledgling Leaves the Nest

2/3 kids are still running fevers, but the worst is over, so back to every day work toward AIRPLANE BUILD.

But first, I need to acknowledge the first flight of one of my other airplane projects, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, to which I have devoted most of the last five years of my professional existence (as Moog Inc. Project Engineer for the leading edge high-lift actuation system).  After well over two years of delays to the first flight, the Dreamliner finally "slipped the surly bonds of earth" for the first time late this morning, I wanna say about 10:25.

At the same moment, I launched my 787 glider - purchased from the Boeing gift store more than two years ago - across the sea of cubicles.   


Yes, though the rubber band was cracked from age, waiting for this day, I "flung my eager craft through footless halls of air ..."


It slammed into the ceiling and broke.

But that's OK, because the real airplane flew successfully.

So back to the Swamptooth airplane project.  Today I swept up the hangar and made a shopping list to get the floor painted. Total project time ~0.1 hours.



"Mad props" to High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

VIP Visit

Spent about 0.5 hrs cleaning and sweeping to prep for floor painting.

Later in the evening, Matt Munson stopped by to tour the facility and assess suitability for droid assembly.

Storage

Don and his stuff, freshly moved out of storage (the stuff, not Don).

We've been planning the Bearhawk retrieval operation, and it's not going to be pretty.

Heavy Rain in So. Cal.

But not much evidence of moisture in the hangar, despite warnings from the previous occupant. Maybe it dried out before I got here.

There were two damp spots: this one by the wall and another in the corner.

Ten Years of Trade Studies

Appear to be at an end.  The deposit check is in the mail.

Uh oh.

Getting Closer

Just to indicate how close, today I downloaded the Bearhawk
Builder's Manual for the fuselage section.  I'm scanning it now for wing strut attach info.

This was the first expenditure specifically allocated to a particular model of aircraft, for building purposes.

Pothole Patching

Before we could repaint the hangar floor, we needed to repair some small potholes located right about where the aircraft nose would be positioned in the hangar.  

To do the job, I picked up this premixed patching compound at Home Depot.  It's weird stuff, but it works pretty darn well.  Best way I can describe it is like pea-sized gravel mixed in a dry but very sticky slurry, hard to stick a trowel into, the whole mess black as pitch (a close relative).  One little bucket was more than we needed.  You wouldn't think it could fill a hole nicely, and it doesn't ... until you pound it REALLY hard.  I guess it's the same stuff you see the road crew steamrollering hundreds of yards at a time.  I'm starting to appreciate the need for the steamroller!

Well, we didn't have a steamroller, but we did have Don Varner, and an 8"x8" landscaping tamper.  BANG! BANG! BANG!  Being former rock-and-roll types, we had earplugs handy, but Don went and apologized to our next door neighbor, who turned out to have his hangar filled up with old cars and a WWII jeep.

Once you really compact this patching compound, it lightens in color and gets rock hard.  The technique we ended up with was to mound up a tarball of the compound sticking well above the hole, whack it a dozen times or so with the tamper, add more little dollops around the edges and anywhere it was still black, and whack it some more.

You can see the main hole and three little ones in this picture.  The little ones appear grey, signifying full compaction, and the big one is darker because we had just sprinkled water on it to accelerate the curing process.  You can also see where the tamper handle broke!  To get the edges fairly flush, we were striking with the tamper slightly out of vertical to get more impact on the corner of the tool.  Snap!

Fortunately, we were almost done at this point and were able to finish the job (shown in the first picture) with a rubber mallet striking a metal trowel held flat against the patch.  We would have had a clean edge on that one too, but the underlying asphalt was very poor quality locally and was starting to blow out around the edges.

According to the instructions, when you're done pounding the pothole patch, it will bear full weight (even before final cure).  Lucky thing, 'cause Don almost immediately drove a car over the main pothole, to unload some boxes into the corner of the hangar.

Total time was about two hours on Saturday afternoon (I'm posting this a day late).

Now we just need an airplane!

Test Square

Back to work. Tried a patch of Glidden interior semi-gloss white. Seems OK so far, with maybe one drop-sized spot of bleed-through, possibly from an underlying oil stain.

We'll check tomorrow and try to assess durability.

We also did some brush touch-up work on the walls and conduits. Total time in hangar: about 75 minutes.

The Bearkhawk Pitch

Don and I are conducting intense trade studies on the partially complete Bearhawk up in Montana, with more questions answered by the builders, and also by the airplane's designer, Bob Barrows, who Don telephoned yesterday.  As for me, I haven't been to the hangar in four days.  My cold is clearing up, so I should be back in action (painting the hangar floor) tomorrow or Friday at latest.

This photo is from Oshkosh, July 2009.  Will and I went for a demo ride in that Bearhawk.  Will loved it almost as much as I did.  We taxied out on the main runway in front of the huge flightline crowd, many thousand aviation enthusiasts awaiting the arrival of the Airbus A380.  As we taxied by, lots of people waved and snapped pictures, probably thinking we were about to launch on an aerobatic routine, but we just did a max-performance takeoff and headed East over Lake Winnebago.  The Bearhawk took off like the Great Glass Elevator, thanks to the Lycoming O-540 under the cowl and the constant-speed prop.  The tail came up in a few seconds and then we were airborne almost right away, and climbing much faster than I am accustomed to.

The owner/builder, Mark Goldberg, made his (very nice) plane available to Avipro (the kit manufacturer) for Airventure 2009, but he was not around when we arranged for the flight with head honcho Keith Vasey.  The demo pilot chick was a 737 captain from Florida, moonlighting with this gig for Avipro.  When I asked if Will could ride along, she first asked if he was a good flier, meaning would he get airsick.  I looked at the nice upholstery and tried to sound confident when I vouched for him.  The truth is Will had never been in a small airplane before.  Luckily, he not only lived up to my billing, but totally enjoyed the flight, grinning from ear to ear even during the steep turns and stalls.  No vomit comet.

Anyway, I felt immediately comfortable in the airplane, very at ease with its handling and performance (it just FELT safe), but I definitely missed the sun roof modification, which was included in the display aircraft, but not the one I rode in (or in the published plans).  I now consider the sun roof an absolute must for my own Bearhawk, both for enjoyment and traffic spotting.

Montana Feedback

I have excused myself from getting my hands dirty the last couple of days due to an apparent sinus infection.  Good times.

But Don did get an answer from the bearhawk builder in Montana, with responses to our earlier queries.

Key points:

• Project was started in 2000; owner is now selling due to medical issues.  Aircraft was built in the garage of an EAA technical counselor who was involved "from day one"  (Probably because it was the owner's first project.)  Very encouraging.
• No cargo door because it's not in the plans!  (I guess it was a later, builder initiated improvement).  Relatively straightforward to retrofit, but does involve some welding.  And removal of fabric covering (which is Stits process, by the way).
• The Airframe & Powerplant mechanic who did the evaluation rated the sheet metal work on the wings as "fair" due to some imperfect riveting (rivets not flush, or not bucked/crimped perfectly).  This is good news because it is not a dimensional issue (i.e. wings are straight!).  We will want to remove wing skins and redo some riveting.
• The same A&P rated the TIG-welded fuselage cage as "good."
• All material and hardware came from a known good supplier (Aircraft Spruce).  Except the engine, which was salvaged from a damaged aircraft (engine was not damaged, but was overhauled to zero time).  Also, project includes a constant-speed prop from same source.  Bonus!
• Building logs are not 100% complete, but should be OK.
• The landing gear is 4-6" longer than called for by the plans, a modification intended for rough fields/bush flying.

Overall, this is encouraging information and makes sense.  Slightly better than I was hoping, actually.

Traffic Paint

Picked up supplies for a head-to-head test of asphalt floor covering paints. One gallon of traffic paint, and a smaller quantity of indoor/outdoor semi-gloss latex.

I plan to conduct the test tomorrow.

Walls are Painted!

The whole crew was on hand for 2-2.5 hours of painting: rolling semi-gloss over the white primer.

There is still some minor brushwork to be done before we move on ... To the floor.

Primed and Ready

After my closest-yet pass with flaking out, I rallied and spent a bit less than three hours completing the primer coat on the remaining four walls. It was all detail brushwork.

There's a darned good chance we'll skip the detailing on the topcoat, which is why I spent a bit more time.

Now for Thanksgiving, I just need to make sure I'm out of town by noon, so that my "traveling" exemption will apply for the day.

Semi-Gloss

Picked up two gallons for the top coat. It was late, and I knew Don was not coming tomorrow, so I then played the guitar instead of opening up the primer can at this hour. Oh, did I mention the Squier and Pignose have been in here for a couple of weeks?

Sang an electric version of "Jim Jones" (great natural reverb and got the creepy feeling that I was being listened to from behind the metal wall). Time to go sleep.

The vehicles in here are not what I always imagined.

Questions for the Helena, Montana Bearhawk Builders.

Was the rear cargo door left off because the fuselage frame was modified?
How difficult do you think it will be to rework the fabric skin to include this door?
Why are you not completing the project?
Have there been any design updates issued that you have incorporated since your plans were issued?
Why do you think the inspecting A&P only rated the work on the wings as fair?
Who were your major hardware suppliers?
What is the total time on the O-360?
What is the history on the propeller?
What kind of building logs did you keep?
Was this your first aircraft build?
Did you have any help along the way from inspectors or mechanics?
What kind of welding did you use for the fuselage?
What was the most difficult part of the build process?
What fabric covering system did you use?
What did you use to paint your welded fuselage frame?
Do you have any jigs or fixtures that might be useful for completing the project?
How much longer is the landing gear than the standard bearhawk?
How far along is the wiring?
Were you going to set this plane up as a constant speed prop?

How We Roll

Took the whole family and spent about 3 hours priming the walls, while the kids battled for hegemony over the tricycle and the CD boom box (Vic's old one).

Will spun The Stone Roses, Willy and the Poorboys, and Fairytale for our travails, before declaring that he was tired of listening to music.

All six walls have now been "rolled," with about 40% of the touch-up ceiling brushwork done.

Matt requested a full view of the hangar. He did NOT request the wagon, but's that's just "how we roll."

Good Enough

I hope "good enough" will become a theme here in Hangar M.

0.4 hours finished the remaining sanding, but due to some paint that fkaked off while sanding, there may be some final mudding and re-sanding.

One Day of Sanding Left

Still puzzling over how to post smaller pics from my phone. My attention span is too short to return to the problem at my home PC.

Another 0.3 hours sanding. I can't drag this out much longer, which means the weekend is just in time.

What Not to Wear While Painting

0.3 hours of finish sanding, in the same clothes I wore during my pitch at a design review earlier today.

The other day, while Don was painting, I forgot to turn out the lights as we were closing the hangar door.  I reached back in through the narrow gap with my navy golf jacket on, and as my arm brushed the wall by the light switch, I got wet paint on my sleeve.  Actually it was primer, not paint - and specifically chosen because of its renowned stickiness.

I rushed home and Lisa somehow got almost all of the the white primer off my jacket.  Then we dropped Don at the Green Line for a dangerous, nighttime, light rail odyssey back to Burbank (though Compton and Watts via the Blue Line, then the Red Line all the way to North Hollywood, thence by car shuttle courtesy of unamused girlfriend).

So anyway, today, I took that jacket off and put a denim work shirt over my customer interface finery.  It's impossible to sand drywall mud without getting white powder spots on your clothes, but they dust off pretty easily.

Petros

Dinner with the design review - Petros in Manhattan Beach.

But I stopped by the hangar and got in 0.1 hours of sanding on the way here!

White!

Don spent 4 hours sanding, cleaning, and priming 5 of the 6 walls. I showed up for the last half hour to set up the lighting kit.

We met a ragtag crew of hangar rats, who tried to rope us into several dubious adventures, and offered generous use of tools - about three hangars' worth.

One of them turned out to be a former coworker!

(Note: reader Matt pointed out I should be reducing my photo sizes. Starting next time, I will!)

Putting the "OK" in Token Progress

Okay, so I have another cold, and I'm at the beginning of an all-week, all-day design review for which we prepared all last week - and the entire weekend.

So I'm not really charged up to go work on AIRCRAFT BUILD.

And actually, today, all I had time for was to stop by the hangar, on my way to dinner with the customer (at the Chart House, in Redondo).

So I changed the sandpaper on the sander, and sanded for maybe 10 minutes.  Then I left.

Hey, I said at the beginning that TOKEN progress is okay.  It's also OK to begin and end this post with the word "okay."

Come Learn to Fly

Quiet Sunday, with the kind of beautiful, cool weather that Glenn and I used to refer to as "come learn to fly" conditions.

Sadly, I was stuck at work all weekend! Still, I got 0.4 hours of hangar improvement in yesterday and half of that today.

Sanding Almost Done

All that's left is between the ladder and the door.

There is a girder very near the left hand wall that precludes access with the electric sander, requiring hand sanding, so that is taking the most time.

Boring Day = Good Progress

0.7 hours sanding. Two walls completed today, with two left to go. Unfortunately, I will be working the whole weekend, but maybe we can still paint.

The New Kid in Town

Great expectations; everybody's watching you.

True Grit

Tonight: sore throat.  I was tempted to create a new exception for non-febrile cold symptoms.  Nope, not backing off now.  Still, I dragged my feet leaving the house and didn't get in the car until 9:30.  Hit Home Depot (closed), Lowe's for 120 grit paper, then checkout and 0.2 hours of sanding with this little yellow number, which Lisa picked up today. [See following post for photo].


Afterward, I walked Lacey to do her stuff in the grass behind the tiedowns on Taxiway Alpha.  Within spittin' distance of the old man's ramp.  I picked it up anyway.

Generacions

Back in action, this time with a belt sander.


Now this isn't your father's belt sander. 'Cause it actually belongs to MY father. Unlike my grandfather's finish sander, which actually belongs to me. That's because my grandmother (on my mother's side) gave it to me last year -- my grandfather (also on my mother's side) having passed on years ago.


Before SHORTING OUT last night after a few days of operation, Grandpa's finish sander hadn't been used since (at earliest) the first half of '95.  Probably more like '85.


Enter the belt sander that belongs to my father (on my father's side), which is technically on loan, but in a "I'll never want this again" kind of way.  Just a few days ago, the belt sander had been spurned, in favor of the finish sander. Yes, It seems this simple paint-prep job is shaping up to be an epic generational contest.  At the moment, the advantage is clearly with the fully functional and reasonably safe baby boomer tool.  Okay, that's what I must use to make some progress tonight.  But after only a few square feet, it is obvious that the belt sander is way too ham fisted for use on paint.  Of course, Don knew that already.


So should I try to repair the metal behemoth that NEARLY FELLED ME last night?  Or buy a new tool just to finish the last hour's worth of work?  My father-in-law (on my wife's side) just arrived in town, and told a harrowing tale of an old acquaintance who was fatally electrocuted by a metal-chassis power drill.  After that, my father-in-law gathered up all his all-metal power tools and dumped them in an all-metal trash can. 


Hmm.


But now I am SURE that I hear the sound of a band rehearsing in a distant hangar, and I must investigate.

Sparks Will Fly

Sanding was cut short at 0.1 hours when my grandpa's old sander tried to electrocute me. It seems wires were exposed by the petrified insulation where the cord passes through a grommet at the end of handle (right next to my un-gloved wrist!)

Last night I had lowered the (quite heavy) sander down from the ladder by its power cable. Maybe that caused it to split. It didn't spit sparks at me until tonight.

Family Sanding

Lisa and I put in about 0.5 hrs sanding Don's drywall mud. The family was patient, but tired.

RV-7 Ride

Several hours with the family and Don, with completing scraping and gluing, and Don mudding everything. Now it's just sanding before we are ready to paint.

We also met David, another former tenant of our hangar (Jay Yau having been the first), likewise with a builder site, www.rv-7.com. David stopped by having heard about us and our rumored Sonex project.

The highlight of the day was Don getting a ride in David's very impressive RV-7. Erika was very disappointed that she couldn't go too, and extracted a commitment from me that she would get the first Sonex ride when we complete our airplane.

Fair enough.

Breathing Solvents

Whole family spent 1.5 hours in-hangar: Lisa mopping walls, me on the ladder scraping and gluing, kids causing mayhem.

As a consequence of all the close contact with grime, dried paint, altitude, Elmer's, fear, children fighting, and spray adhesive, my hands were encased in sticky black goo of indeterminate chemistry (though apparently inert w.r.t. water, soap, alcohol, and baby oil). This unpleasant coating took half of Buckeroo Banzai and most of the special features to remove. Tomorrow I'll wear latex gloves.

Chinese Pilots

BEFORE

AFTER

While I was spending my lunch hour at the hangar sticking old drywall tape back on with Elmer's (really), my through the-wall neighbor Jay Yau stopped by for introductions and to see my plane.

Since I don't have one, he told me about his: an RV-7 project, and a completed Murphy Rebel which he flew to Alaska.

For the full story, Mr. Yau was eager to point me at his URL: www.chinesepilots.com.

Flakin'

No, not that kind, not yet anyway. Removed two walls' worth of dingy old flaking paint, and badly done mudding and taping. 0.5 hrs.

Don + Sander

Maybe an hour of combined team paint prep, with a plan concocted.

Paint Prep, Part Two

While aircraft trade studies continue, the stepladder has now been brought to bear.

Hangar Paint Prep

Spent 0.2 hrs proving out a belt sander and a finish sander on the dingy yellow hangar wall paint. Now I need some painting tools.

As I locked up, I took this pic of the sundown marine layer and a Cessna taxiing in.

Opening Day

Don got his keys. I came back later to clean out the hangar: 0.5 hours each of sweeping by Lisa and me.

My Rules for Progress

Okay, here are my current thoughts on how to keep personal momentum while building the airplane. They are customized for me, and I would not possibly recommend them to anyone else, even if they work.

1. Work the project every day, with precedence of activities according to following list. Every day excludes only illness (fever, short-term prescription medication for self, or ER/urgent care for self/immediate family) and travel (out of town at least 12 hours).

2. Make measurable progress on AIRCRAFT BUILD. Token progress is acceptable. Aircraft build is limited to the following activities: (A) Fabrication: permanent functional alteration of materials that are intended to be part of the finished aircraft. (B) Assembly: reversible attachment of materials that are intended to be part of the finished aircraft. Assembly also includes any disassembly necessary to correct mistakes.

3. Conduct planning and logistical support to ensure AIRCRAFT BUILD begins as soon as economically feasible and will not be interrupted.

4. Log progress on the web every day. Keep careful records of time, money, equipment, and check progress against certification requirements.

5. Spend time with the family to keep up morale.

6. Stay fit, healthy, and mentally balanced (the last may be considered a "stretch" goal).

7. Put in extra hours to reach project milestones.

Day 0

Got the hangar yesterday. Better start building an airplane. Lotsa room.

Swamp Update

Actually spending time in the swamp, playing the guitar.

Swamp Phone

New swamp phone = much easier to post. Long, long overdue ... like so many things Swamptooth.

Upper Deck Construction, 4 January 2009

Later that evening, the construction crew pictured recorded a jazz-rock version of the D.H. Lawrence poem "The Snake."