Seats! Need somewhere to sit in this thing.

I’ve been looking forward to seats for a while. They’d make visualizing flying this airplane that much easier. They’re a big step and look like a major accomplishment.

I started with the four side supports. I rough, then final cut the .125″ angle stock, radiused one end and angled the other, making sure to make a left and right for each seat.

Then there’s a lap joint at the bottom end where a hinge will be “dadoed” in. I started this by filing, or trying to, the .040″ of material off the last 9/16″ of the support. I could tell this was going to introduce a ton of rock. Worse, I could tell it was going to take at least two hours to complete four of these.

So I did what every idiot would do and tried a rotary tool with a sideways cutting bit and a router attachment. Not going to work.

Well if the fake router won’t work, perhaps the real one will. So out came the palm router and after about 1.7 second of that, it went back in the drawer.

When building model ships, I envied the tools that the good guys–the really good guys–had. Like miniature machine shops, replete with lathes, fine saws, and mills. I tried to replicate some of this with a drill press stand for my rotary (the same one that failed me above!) and an little x-y table for the thing. Like all my experiences with cheap tools, it ended poorly and I learned nothing.

So fast forward to now, and all I remember is that this x-y table should allow you to do everything that a milling machine can do at 1/10th the cost. I drive out to Harbor Freight, where all bad ideas start, and I find there much larger version of the same poorly constructed x-y table for a drill press. Add in a set of way to cheap yet still expensive end mills and I’m in business.

Except I’m not. Because this thing is far too large for my drill press. I can’t even mount it to the table, and can barely clamp it to the edges.

After about two-three hours of setup and testing, I finally start getting some good results out of the angle stock I have for testing. Pop in the finished products, and I’m off to milling.

It takes about 20-30 minutes a support, but the results are promising.

With these fabricated I decide it’s best to stick to fabricated, and just get all the parts out of the way so I can finish with a satisfying assembly session.

Some horizontal supports are cut, two of which have to have the vertex of the angle filed off, and then some lightening holes are cut out of the seatback rests. By all means these are optional, but why not have another date with death by that thing called a flycutter.

Once all the parts were completed, I clamped everything together and started double checking the fit. I forgot to cut the middle eyelet out of the bottom hinge. This will be needed to easily get the adjustment/mounting pins in-and-out.

I had to triple check my work, as the seatback support doesn’t fit in the middle of the bracket installed on F-705. I haven’t seen anywhere else online that folks have struggled with this, so I may need to reach out to some folks.

Drilling took another one or two hours, but I wanted to lay these rivets out carefully. I was in the zone, and I think it shows. Everything looks spot on.

Once I had it all clecoed together, back in the plane it went for some glamor shots.