| This
page was updated on
10/04/2008
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Seat
Construction |
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| 6/19/06- To build the
seat frames, I drew the the layout on the table and screwed down the
jig blocks. I mitered the tube ends just like I did with the
tubes on the fuselage a station 0-0, I first rough cut them to a 45
on the bandsaw and then finished them on the 12" sander. I
drew a guide line on the top of each tube to help keep them oriented
when cutting and sanding. |
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| 6/21/06- Like
everything else on the Skybolt fuselage, you should build a jig to
hold everything in proper position and the seats are no exception. |
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| 6/21/06- This is the
jig for the front seat. It's pretty simple since there are
parallel tubes directly under the seat sides. |
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| 6/21/06- For the rear
seat, I elected to use notched 1x2's to hold the seat frame in
position. |
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| 6/21/06- Clamps hold
the seat tubing in position. I leveled the fuselage laterally
and then made sure that the seat bottoms were level from side to
side. |
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| 6/21/06- This is a
rear view of the rear seat. When welding the seat frames to
the legs try drilling a 1/16" hole in the seat frame to relieve the
pressure and keep your welds from blowing out. Weld up the
hole when done. |
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6/21/06- Be sure to
measure from side to side in the fuselage so that the seats are
centered and square to the fuselage.
Return to top. |
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6/22/06- By now, notching simple tubes on the bench grinder,
like those for the front seat back, is a piece of cake. |
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|
Seat
Pans |
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| 2/16/07- I used .032"
6061 T6 alum for the seat pans. After making a pattern and
tracing it on the alum sheet, I cut out the pans using a pneumatic
shear and aircraft snips followed by filing and sanding the edges.
Using 2 2x4's screwed to my table and a piece of MDF board cut
to the dimensions of the seat bottom, I started bending the sides of
the pan up. |
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| 2/16/07- The first
pan I bent without annealing the aluminum and it was really
surprising how hard the .032" alum was. I annealed the 2nd pan
along the break lines before bending and it was a 100% easier.
Just line up the break lines in line with the 2x4's and pound on the
MDF until the alum bends up and the pan slips down between the
2x4's. |
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| 2/16/07- Once the
sides were bent vertical, it was time to anneal them along the top
edge where they would roll over the seat frame. To anneal the
alum, I first coated it with acetylene soot. Then I adjusted
my flame with some oxygen to have a long feather and played the
flame over the soot. Gently heat the alum but don't burn all
the way through the soot. About 5 passes with the torch will
do it. The alum will buckle and move only a little bit if you
don't heat it too much. Let it cool and the alum will be real
easy to bend. It will regain it's original hardness in a
couple of weeks depending on the room temperature. |
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| 2/16/07- To
make my pans 3" deep, I made a jig of 3/4"x2 1/8"x17" MDF with a
piece of 3/4" tubing strapped to the top edge. I then bent
each side of the pan over the 3/4" tubing. |
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| 2/16/07- Here is the
completed pan. |
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| 2/16/07- Once
the fuselage is epoxy painted, I will finish bending the outside of
the pans in toward the sides and rivet them together permanently. |
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