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Fly cutter in a cordless drill very carefully.

Worked great on both of my seat pans. I made two, one standard and one for the lowered seat mod. I built it so they could be interchangeable.

Time for brake-a-saurus. Bend the 20 down first.


Then the 24 up.

Then the 72 degrees up.


Came out good.


Besides opening up the rectangular hole in the middle, I clearanced these little angles in the aft cabin details. Thanks Ryan!


I don't have all the hinges installed yet but chucked it in place.

Soon, you can sit in it! And make airplane noises!

Looks great Bryan


Robbie Culver
Sonex 1517
Chicagoland
Tails and Wings complete - finishing fuselage.
N1517S reserved

Bryan - that is one large brake machine. WTH! You could scratch build all day with that device.

Your seat pan look nice and pretty...but hate to be the bearer of bad news. You most likely will need to open up the rear edge and radius more for the dual sticks to have full range of motion for the control surfaces. Like you I was very particular about the initial layout and cutting and drilling of the opening.

Then Mike Farley was over one day and said with a chuckle "that's a great start, you'll need to open those up more...at least I did on mine".

Nevertheless he was correct. I probably had to hand trim away another 3/8" - 1/2" of material for full back elevator travel.

Enjoy working on the seat. I'm still stuck finishing the cowl. Heading out tonight for our spring backpacker Boy Scout campout. Forecast is for lows around 20 tonight and tomorrow night.

Who said spring was here?

Bryan,

Your airplane build is looking great. Soon you will be able to sit in the cockpit and really start dreaming! It won't be long now before your plane really starts to look like a plane. Hang in there!

Jake

Thanks guys! I am a little afraid of sitting in it with just clecos. Have any of you tried that trick? How much do you weigh? I am 200, Adam is a lot less so I might let him try.

Scott, I got a great deal on that brake. For years the longest part I made was 4". Sort of silly! But since I have bent up the control surfaces for my Hummelbird and a friend's Thatcher CX4. Good luck on your hike. I was promoted to Scoutmaster last week in my troop.

Bryan, I did sit in my plane (and I'm pretty big) with Clecoes and had no I'll effects. However 2 important points, one of which I'm not sure you can replicate. First, I slipped bolts (not clecoes) into the longeron splice plates between fore/aft fuselage, since this joint would take a lot of the weight. Second, my plane was not on the gear, instead it was on the floor with a piece of 4x4 wood across the middle of the forward fuselage (to keep the clecoes off the floor), so I was basically sitting over this wood, rather than the midpoint between the main gear and tailwheel.

That said, the seat sling is supported on 3 crossbars that fix to the side panels, so I'd think as long as the side panels and longerons are securely fixed it'd be fine to sit. The weakest point is probably the clecoed spar tunnel.

Sweet! Now you can sit in it and make zoomzoom noises!

Before we tackled the Boy Scout trailer Adam took this time lapse. He just set it to music and posted it.
http://youtu.be/g0L4t2ZOr8Q

Haha, end result made me lol. Does he always run in the hamster wheel that much or was he playing to the camera?

Had to sneak that back from the crank thread. He does go off and run in the hamster wheel, it is fun and distracting.