Rear seats installed

After all the side panels and seat belts were installed, we attached the rear seats:

Rear seats installed in place

That completes section 42.

Time lapse:

Total rear seat back rivets: 124

Total rear seat back time: 18.3h

Aerosport rear seat fixup

I cut the pins to attach the rear seats:

Rear seats attached in place

I sent the seat backs to Aerosport to have them covered, and later received them back - they look great!

Aerosport seat bottom

An issue I found is that apparently they riveted a metal backing to the rear seats, without removing the plastic from the metal or deburring the metal - so I removed the rivets to clean it up:

Metal plate riveted to the rear seats by Aerosport WITH the plastic still on!

Once I removed the upholstery that covers that part and removed the rivets, a few different issues became apparent - not only did they leave plastic under the rivets and the full back side, but also the holes were not deburred, some rivets were set at an angle, they hit the seat back aluminum angles with the drill bit on every hole they drilled on the corrugation (this one is not a big deal, I admit, but them not being careful with my work was a bit upsetting), and some holes were below the minimum edge distance.

Aerosport rear seats after pulling up the upholstery

Plastic underneath the rivets that Aerosport set on the rear seats

Rivet set at an angle (one of many)

Hole without deburring (all of them)

Damage to the rear seat angle from drilling the corrugation (on all holes)

Plastic backing left on the back of the part that was riveted on

Rivet hole too close to the edge of the aluminum

All of this was true for both seats, so I can't believe it was an oversight. I reached out to Geoff from Aerosport with this feedback, so I'm confident it'll be addressed if it hasn't been already.

After fixing all of that and rounding the corners, I applied some primer and riveted the backing plates back on:

Aerosport backing plate with primer applied

Aerosport backing plate riveted back to the rear seat

Last but not least, while reassembling the seats I noticed one of the velcros on one of the seats was swapped (the same side was on both mating parts, which prevents attaching that bit (not a big deal, there's many other velcros around it that will secure the upholstery just fine):

Mismatched velcros on the backing plate

With this fixed, the only left for the rear seats is final-attaching them in place.

Time lapse:

Total rear seat rivets: 124

Total rear seat time: 17.9h

Rear seat back riveting

After painting, I riveted the rear seat backs:

Left rear seat back fully riveted

Aft side of left rear seat back, fully riveted

With this, they're ready to be attached in place (as soon as the floors are riveted in as well):

Rear seat backs in place

Rear seat backs as seen from the baggage compartment

Time lapse:

Total rear seat back rivets: 96
Total rear seat back time: 14.2h

Started painting fuselage interior parts

After the primer batch, I decided to paint the primed interior parts that would be visible:

Painted baggage door, baggage area and rear seat parts

Painted baggage door and tailcone attachment parts

Painted floors and rear seat backs

Painted cover plates

There are aparts already attached to the fuselage that may also need painting, plus most section 35 parts are not finished/ready for paint yet, but I'll do those later.

Overall, painting with the spray can was just sooo much easier than the HVLP, and I was pretty happy with the results.

Time lapse:

Total paint time: 1.5h
(but I'll count the total time in each section for the parts, proportionally)

Large batch of fuselage primer

We primed quite a few parts from various fuselage sections (and even some from the empennage attachment, and for rebuilding part of the vertical stabilizer):

Various fuselage parts after scrubbing with Prekote

Primed fuselage parts on the floor (ran out of space elsewhere)

Primed fuselage parts on the workbench

Primed fuselage parts on top of the fuselage

This unblocks a ton of work, so expect many more posts in the near future.

Time lapse:

Total time: 6.5h (but I'll count it towards each section instead)

Rear seat backs started

While waiting on the weather to prime some parts, I started section 42, the rear seat backs. This starts by fabricating some angles:

Rear seat back angles

Two of those need to be rounded at the vertex to nest in the top part of the seat backs:

Rear seat back top angles, one of them rounded at the vertex

The way I found to do this with some precision over the length of the angle was to make a 45-degree chamfer first until the width of the material was the same on the vertex as on the flanges, and measuring to ensure that the width of the chamfered area was the same throughout the angle, before finally rounding it:

One rounded (right) and one chamfered (left) rear seat back top angles

Forward side of the rear seat back, match-drilled to the angles and hinge half

Back side of the rear seat back, match-drilled to the angles and hinge half

As a minor detail - Van's tells you to cut the hinge pins in half, at 8" - don't :) The removed hinge eyes are not exactly centered, so I found that it's much better to cut them at the center of the removed eyes:

Hinge pins cut in half (top) and at the center of the removed eyes (bottom)

Some of the parts had some excess length which I'll likely trim off later:

This completes all the fabrication involved in this short section - now it's just minor trimming, deburring, primer and riveting/attachment.

Time lapse:

Total rear seat backs time: 7.6h