The Seabee Project Blog

Seabee's At The Store! November 26, 2022 Out of complete coincidence, on July 9th, 2022 (The day we picked up our Seabee), Hallmark released their 2022 Hallmark Keepsake ornament series, which included a Republic RC3 Seabee . I had assumed that these would only be sold in limited quantities, and only in the U.S., but I was delighted to see that they had one on display when I entered my local Hallmark store today. I searched the boxes and was pleased to see that they had many in stock (10 boxes to be exact) but also pleased to see that many had already been sold! I believe that Hallmark's choice to create an ornament of such a unique and historic aircraft will help to bring more attention, enthusiasm, and interest back into the Republic RC3 Seabee and hopefully help further grow the Seabee community. Sculptor Lynn Norton was in charge of making this design and I believe that he did an excellent job at recreating every single detail the Seabee has to offer (he even included hull...

  November 2022 Updates November 12, 2022 As of the date of publication, we have: -Acquired a handful of new parts including, control surfaces, cowling parts, seats, hull parts, and much more. -Installed and connected the water rudder -Started paint stripping -Fully cleaned the inside of the aircraft and have begun removing seat rails and electrical cables ...as well as much more behind the scenes that will be revealed shortly!

 September 2022 Updates September 18, 2022 As of the date of this publication, we have made a lot of important progress, in the background, for both of our projects.  In terms of the Seabee, we have arranged to purchase numerous new parts including, doors, floats, replacement nose panels, control surfaces, wheel parts, cowling parts, etc. We have also begun stripping paint from the aircraft using EzStrip , an eco-friendly paint-stripping alternative. In terms of the Bumble Bee model, we have now completed 3d modeling a design for the wooden skeleton (photo), which we will begin physically building in the next few weeks.

  August 2022 Updates August 7, 2022 As of the date of publication, and the 29 days since we picked up our aircraft, our team has fully cleaned the exterior of the aircraft, as well as pulled out the hydraulic system and other loose pieces that were inside the aircraft. It may still not look fully cleaned, but let me tell you, even 5 boxes of 12 magic erasers isn’t enough to fully remove every spec of dirt that’s been caked on the airplane for the last 76 years, so for what we’ve done so far, I’d say we’ve done pretty well… Especially when you see the difference between the cleaned and uncleaned sections (Right) . We’ve only just begun and there is so much more work to do; Hopefully if everything goes well we’ll be able to open our exhibit by the end of the fall of 2022 where visitors will be able to see the current state of the project as well as learn about the history of the aircraft and amphibian aircraft in general. Additionally, we hope to add a second aircraft to our collect...