Believe it or not, sometimes life gets so busy that a guy cannot even work on his airplane. When that happens, the best answer is to take a few days of vacation and get stuff done. Yesterday, I finished up the hinges for the doors on my Bede BD-4C airplane. In my last post, I showed […]

In a previous post, Fabricating Steel Hinge Parts, I showed how I made the steel half of one of the Bede BD-4C airplane door hinges. The other half is an aluminum block which gets bolted to the fuselage. For the upper hinge, the block is kind of teardrop shaped and has slot in it for the steel part. I […]

My Bede BD-4C is looking more like a modern airplane and less like the Wright Flyer, since I bonded the eight foot long section of skin to the right, rear section of the fuselage. Conceptually, it’s simple. Paint the 3M Scotch-Weld #10 contact adhesive onto the airplane and onto the skin.

Here is a bonus post, for those of you who are seriously into the nitty gritty of fabricating an airplane out of a pile of aluminum and steel. I don’t usually post photos in this much detail because I figure that most people don’t care. If you want more of this sort of thing, post […]

The door on the right side of my Bede BD-4C airplane is ready to go to the welder. I had to fabricate two aluminum blocks for the hinges. These will bolt to the fuselage. Then I had to fabricate matching steel parts and weld them to the door frame. Here is a photo of the […]

I have finished the tail skid and the ventral fin of my Bede BD-4C airplane! After fiddling around with bits and pieces for months, it was a huge celebration to bolt the tail skid in place…

In and around helping Act Two Theatre with our production of Chicago, I have been continuing to work on the doors of my Bede BD-4C airplane. I tack welded the pilot side door together and it came out “OK.” At first, it did not fit as well as I wanted but I was able to cut one weld […]

I have spent the last week making the steel frames for the doors for my BD-4C airplane. OK, let me be more precise. I spent the last week making the first frame. Having done the copilot’s door, and figured out all the hard stuff, I made the pilot’s door in few hours today. The only […]

It’s hard to believe but I have actually finished the tailcone of my Bede BD-4C airplane. Lots of nutplates, screws, and rivets. I think the hardware to hold it together may well weigh more than the aluminum in the tailcone itself. Here it is assembled to the back of the fuselage. (Click any photo to see […]

In December 2011, when I first started building my Bede BD-4C airplane, I made the tailcone according to the drawings. I documented that process in two blog posts, Top of the Tail Cone and Bede BD-4C Tail Cone. In the intervening three years, I ended up rebuilding the tail of the fuselage to fit the […]

The first brace for the rear seat frame of my Bede BD-4C airplane took so long that I thought the remaining three would take quite awhile. I was wrong. With help from my friend, Dave, I got them all done on Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. Here are photos of the complete set of braces and […]

Now that I am a “master welder” (hah! 😛 ) I am moving forward with fabricating steel parts for my Bede BD-4C airplane. My first attempt was the tail skid. I had to have the tube bent for me, since I do not have a torch, but then I cut the tube to length and […]

I made some progress on the rear seat frame for my Bede BD-4C airplane today. The rear seat is a surprisingly comfortable sling. I cut the tube which is the cross bar. I clamped some wood onto the fuselage to hold the tube in position. Then I continued fabricating the angles which will be riveted […]

For years, I have joked that, I don’t weld. Well, now I do. There are a few steel components on my Bede BD-4C airplane that need to be fabricated to fit my plane. The main ones in front of me now are the door frames, the rear seat frame, the brackets for the front seat, and the […]

The Bede BD-4C airplane has a whole bunch of hardware inside the back end of the fuselage. The two rudder cables (one from each rudder pedal) are attached to a steel bellcrank. The bellcrank operates the front end of a push-pull rod (the back end of which is attached to a control horn on the bottom […]

In our last episode, our intrepid BD- had built a bending brake but been forced out of his airplane factory by the sweltering St. Louis summer heat. Once the temperature dropped, I was able to make the bend for the middle of the BD-4C dorsal fin and then cut it to shape, ready to have the flanges […]

I made a little progress on my Bede BD-4C airplane this week, though it is not photogenic enough to show here. I made two small steel plates which will attach the tail skid to the fuselage. They are drilled and clecoed in place, waiting for the welder to bend the ½ inch 4130 steel tube into […]

I discovered a serious problem with my Bede BD-4C airplane as I was getting ready to install the top fuselage skin: the horizontal part of the tail was crooked. Specifically, the copilot’s side of the tail was about three inches higher (above the floor) than the pilot’s side. I did some careful measuring and figured out that the […]

The wingtips for my Bede BD-4C airplane arrived today, a very nice surprise since I have been having a hellish time getting the horizontal stabilator attached parallel to the wing spar. Here are pictures, in gorgeous carbon fiber. I am dearly looking forward to the day when I can attach these to the wings.