Seat cushions and upholstery

[SonexN76ET]

I bought a slab of conform foam that is 38 x 19 consisting of 1 inch medium and 1 inch firm. I have not installed it yet because it is very heavy. I will likely use high density foam instead.

Last year I reupholstered my boat. Now I am slowly putting my Sonex seat upholstery together. Chris Madsen has a few good links to upholstery on his builders website that I am referencing.

I should have some pictures soon.

Thanks,

Jake

[ScottM-Sonex1629]

Robbie,

The confor foam I told you about arrived today from Aircraft Spruce. To all reading this thread, I do not recommend getting the single 2" layer of the blue/medium firm. It's as hard as wood. I'm going to see about returning it and trying what I orginally bought.

[billmaxmcw]

I went to the local upholstery store and tried out a number of materials. I ended up with 2-inch very firm foam for the seat, and 2-inch soft foam for the back, covered by my wife in fabric similar to car cloth seats. Side panels ditto. Held in place by sticky-back velcro tape.
Bill

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[SonexN76ET]

Al Roberts,

Here is a thread on upholstery. I saw on your earliest post someone had mentioned that $1000 for leather is a good price.

I put together my own leather upholstery as I had sewn some boats seats a couple years ago. If I could do it over again I would just have bought the tex nylon upholstery package from Sonex. The Sonex set looks better and is probably lighter than what I pulled together.

Jake

[Mike53]

http://www.sunmatecushions.com/pages/hi ... plications http://www.sunmatecushions.com/pages/di ... st-sellers
Same stuff as Conform just cheaper .

[tmobbs]

I have the Sonex leather upholstery set for my A model Sonex with the lowered seat option and twin sticks. It looks good.

But I sat on the seat cushions in the aircraft for the first time today and was disapointed to find that I could no longer get full up elevator. The slots in the upholstery to take the two sticks just don't go far enough back to enable the sticks to move back far enough. With the triangular "boots" in place, the situation is even worse.

Has anyone else found that?

And if so what have you done about it?

Tim Mobbs Sonex #1555, Aerovee #0672
Bungay, Suffolk, England.

[peter anson]

I have just tried a new tack on this and I was very happy with the results. The seat base cushions in my Sonex are just 2" thick foam rubber which I find OK, but I found that flying for more than 2 hours in a day caused back pains. I simply copied the shape of my car seat in blue polystyrene foam and slipped it behind the seat back cushion. I found it to be really comfortable on a long trip.

The back is 353 mm wide by 400 mm high. Maximum thickness of 30 mm is located 150 mm from the bottom edge and it tapers to about 2 mm at the top and bottom. The sides are carved from the same 30 mm sheet and glued on with 5 minute epoxy. The maximum side depth of 70 mm is located about 180 mm from the bottom.

Peter
Sonex 894
321 hours - the last 18 in real comfort

[WaiexN143NM]

Hi tim,
Yes the sonex seat cushions.,we took to a local upholstery shop here on the airfield , at KRYN ryan field tucson. We cut out a few more inches , to clear the sticks. Restictched, looks good.

WaiexN143NM
Michael

[Darick]

I bought a used factory interior package. There is a row of snaps at the top of the seat back. Is this for attaching a sling type baggage compartment or meant to be snapped to the cross member to keep the seat in place?

[builderflyer]

Darick,

They snap to the cross member. I put a strip of foam cushioning beneath to take up some of the extra material and to provide a softer seat when getting in and out of the airplane.

Art,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Sonex taildragger #95