Beaver Restoration

Dan208B

Well-Known Member
Anyone on here have any experience with beaver rebuilds/restorations/maintenance or know anyone that does? I bought a DHC-2 Mk1 project and am struggling a bit to decide exactly what to do with it. I'm located in NW Washington State and have had full day visits with Kenmore Air in Seattle and Sealand Aviation in Campbell River, B.C. Options thus far:

-Give airplane to Kenmore or Sealand for full rebuild (very expensive)

-Do rebuild myself but outsource as much as possible, sending various parts to experts and hiring some local help as well (cheaper but time consuming)

-Do entire project myself (likely won't do because I'm fairly time limited)

-Buy/sell/trade/repair some of the parts I have, inventory things, and resell project for 3x my purchase price (Kenmore estimate)

I suppose I'm posting here just in hopes that someone has some thoughts and suggestions for this. The project is a little daunting. This will be my 4th airplane I've owned and a Beaver has always been my #1 choice for a personal aircraft but the $750k+ airplanes seemed unrealistic for me even long-term. So when this came along I had to jump on it. I've been advised by multiple people that Beavers can get difficult and expensive quickly between figuring out paperwork and STCs and finding parts, etc. Can't really go wrong with any options but looking for general restoration advice and certainly any Beaver/DHC specific stuff. Thanks!
 
when you say “project” what do you mean? I’ve worked extensively with Sealand on 4 paint jobs/major refurbs and a few other projects and they are really good to work with. The exchange rate makes getting work done in Canada insanely cheap in airplane dollars and they do really good work-their structures and paint guys are second only to maybe Kenmore.

I was also DoM of an operation with 3 Beavers 135 for a few years. I’m not an expert like some of the old coots that have been working on them since God was a child, but I’ve picked up a few things along the way.
 
when you say “project” what do you mean?

SERIOUS project. I have a completely reskinned fuselage (done very well by someone that obviously knew beavers), birdcage not yet attached. Also have all wings/empennage and control surfaces. Aside from that I have a hangar full of what appears to be just about every part I would need plus some spares. So it's actually in a good position to choose STCs and options and then reassemble. What did your beavers have in terms of mods and STCs and what would you recommend in that regard? I appreciate the advice on Sealand, they seemed very professional.
 
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Anyone on here have any experience with beaver rebuilds/restorations/maintenance or know anyone that does? I bought a DHC-2 Mk1 project and am struggling a bit to decide exactly what to do with it. I'm located in NW Washington State and have had full day visits with Kenmore Air in Seattle and Sealand Aviation in Campbell River, B.C. Options thus far:

-Give airplane to Kenmore or Sealand for full rebuild (very expensive)

-Do rebuild myself but outsource as much as possible, sending various parts to experts and hiring some local help as well (cheaper but time consuming)

-Do entire project myself (likely won't do because I'm fairly time limited)

-Buy/sell/trade/repair some of the parts I have, inventory things, and resell project for 3x my purchase price (Kenmore estimate)

I suppose I'm posting here just in hopes that someone has some thoughts and suggestions for this. The project is a little daunting. This will be my 4th airplane I've owned and a Beaver has always been my #1 choice for a personal aircraft but the $750k+ airplanes seemed unrealistic for me even long-term. So when this came along I had to jump on it. I've been advised by multiple people that Beavers can get difficult and expensive quickly between figuring out paperwork and STCs and finding parts, etc. Can't really go wrong with any options but looking for general restoration advice and certainly any Beaver/DHC specific stuff. Thanks!
Would be a lot of fun to follow along, whatever you do. Make this a restore thread with pictures?
 
SERIOUS project. I have a completely reskinned fuselage (done very well by someone that obviously knew beavers), birdcage not yet attached. Also have all wings/empennage and control surfaces. Aside from that I have a hangar full of what appears to be just about every part I would need plus some spares. So it's actually in a good position to choose STCs and options and then reassemble.
Gotcha.
Well, in that case if it were me and I had mainline money and schedule I’d send parts out and do the assembly myself with the help of a few friends who also had a lot of free time and mechanical aptitude. Are the wings, tail, control surfaces etc all rebuilt? If any of them need gone through I’d send them to Sealand in a heartbeat, they did some beaver tail feathers for us that turned out great. But as far as the tinkertoy actually bolting stuff together that’s no problem.

Do you have access to knowledgeable beaver guys as advisors to the project?
 
Would be a lot of fun to follow along, whatever you do. Make this a restore thread with pictures?

Sure, let's start now! This was a legitimate "Barn find" airplane. So here's some photos of pulling it out, driving it home, and some random parts I have in the corner of a hangar (about 10% of my total parts). I've done more but I'm at work and don't have photos at the moment.
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Sure, let's start now! This was a legitimate "Barn find" airplane. So here's some photos of pulling it out, driving it home, and some random parts I have in the corner of a hangar (about 10% of my total parts). I've done more but I'm at work and don't have photos at the moment.View attachment 41922View attachment 41923View attachment 41924View attachment 41925
Aren't you in Washington? Totally volunteering for a day of work next time we're out to visit the family!
 
Gotcha.
Well, in that case if it were me and I had mainline money and schedule I’d send parts out and do the assembly myself with the help of a few friends who also had a lot of free time and mechanical aptitude. Are the wings, tail, control surfaces etc all rebuilt? If any of them need gone through I’d send them to Sealand in a heartbeat, they did some beaver tail feathers for us that turned out great. But as far as the tinkertoy actually bolting stuff together that’s no problem.

Do you have access to knowledgeable beaver guys as advisors to the project?

I like the idea of that happy medium where I get to learn more about my airplane by assembling. I have SOME beaver help yes but not locally, will involve flying to Seattle and picking them up for project advice occasionally. All my control surfaces are good except the flaps have hangar rash so I'll call Sealand about sending them up there. I may have to pay someone like Sealand to sit down with me for a day and come up with a final plan for STCs and such and figure out what parts I need and how to make sure my STCs play nice with eachother, that seems to be an issue with beavers.
 
I like the idea of that happy medium where I get to learn more about my airplane by assembling. I have SOME beaver help yes but not locally, will involve flying to Seattle and picking them up for project advice occasionally. All my control surfaces are good except the flaps have hangar rash so I'll call Sealand about sending them up there. I may have to pay someone like Sealand to sit down with me for a day and come up with a final plan for STCs and such and figure out what parts I need and how to make sure my STCs play nice with eachother, that seems to be an issue with beavers.
What are you going to do with the airplane?
 
Make sure that early in the pro-cess (as the Canadians say) you get someone to research all the ADs on the airplane. If it hasn’t flown in years (decades?) there have been quite a few new ones issued in the meantime and a lot of them are easier to comply with and fix if needed with the airplane in its present state.
 
Have you checked with Shane Carlson with Northwest Seaplanes? I don't know how much they do on their own but he should have done additional info.
 
Have you checked with Shane Carlson with Northwest Seaplanes? I don't know how much they do on their own but he should have done additional info.

Yes I talked to Shane. They actually have done a lot of rebuilds in the past. He was going to talk with his director of maintenance. I was also hoping to find someone that had them build a beaver and get some info on how things went and what they did themselves vs farmed out.
 
Amphib Beaver floats give me nightmares.

I know... I know. I live in a place where it would be very difficult to have one on straight floats, but some incredible float destinations are also close. I'm not 100% on that but I think it would be best. That being said, RE the ADs and such, I've been talked into a viking upgross kit which apparently is also easier to deal with right now while things are apart.
 
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