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I did it! I made my own lightweight, breathable seatbacks. At least I hope I saved some weight. If not, at least they will allow some air to flow thru (with the right material for cushions).





I might put one more cross support between the one in the middle, and the bottom of the seat, but it's pretty sturdy like this...we'll see on that one.

What kind of upholstry is going to go against that seat back? Would have to be pretty thin to breathe wouldn't it? Or is your parachute your seat back cushion?

The stuff I've looked at is a wide cell foam-type material that I can double or triple layer for cushion, then cover it with a fine mesh cloth of some sort for upolstry. I'm still working out the details on that stuff, but it should work pretty well.

I forgot to mention that the seatbacks came from Menard's aviation isle. It was weird...they had screen door protectors in the aviation isle.

Chad, is that screen mesh made from aluminum ? If so, I would imagine it to be lighter indeed. How did you mount the mesh to the frame ? Got a close up pic ?

It is aluminum screen mesh. It's SUPER light by itself. I started with this-

Just a regular 'ol screen protector for your back door.



I bought two of them, trimmed them both down, and refit the frame after I trimmed it.



I put "keeper rivets in the corners (yes, I cleaned up those ugly corners...).



Then built the angle frame just light the plans say to.



Here's about as close a detail shot that I have from today's work, but you can see I just used the aluminum U-channel frame that came with the protector and added the .125 angle to the sides, and .063 to the top, bottom, and middle.

Chad, Have you weighed them, if so how much do they weigh?

Chad,

Thanks for posting the extra pictures and details. Looks like a very sweet alternative to the standard. I too am curious as to the weight savings and how they will feel when installed.

I'm sure I could adopt that type of seat for the front frame of the 8, but it would be a bit more work than I'd care to do right now for the back seat frame.

I'm gonna weigh them at work tomorrow. Alton Deweese sent me an email last night saying that one of his standard seatbacks with pins in place and the support "bridge" in place, weighs 2 pounds, 12 ounces. So threre's my benchmark.

Now...al I have to do is remember to bring them to work...

Kewl! If they don't work as seatbacks, you've got some really cool BBQ grill grates.

Well, I weighed them...drum roll please!

I saved 4.5oz's (per seat). Not much, but it is something.

Brad, I was thinking about bringing them to Oshkosh for our camp grill!

cjensen wrote:Brad, I was thinking about bringing them to Oshkosh for our camp grill!

That's one way to make them black!

If they don't melt first!

Okay...I got the material to cover my seatbacks! So, here's a good pic to give you an idea of the open cell material...yes, that IS Sonny Crocket!



Being covered with four layers-



And the almost finished product-



The red lines show where I'll put a cover on the top of the seat to cover the back where the material comes together.

Whatchya think?

Chad,

I think you have a really great idea going there... especially for keeping it cool in the summer. I guess as long as it's comfortable for the long flights then you have got yourself a winning seat there.

Kudo's on making the seats "Chad-experimental" rather than buying someone's factory made seat kit.

Me, I have to admit that I have no sewing skill's to talk about. I bought Van's seat templates and foam and some nice leather material. I did however cut out all the patterns. But I had someone else do the actual sewing

How do they feel when you sit against them?

I set them up against my fireplace, and leaned on them last night for a while. They are not the most comfortable seatbacks out there, but they should serve the purpose while being moderately comfortable. Hard to tell while sitting on the floor to tell if it's really my back that's telling me something, or my butt from no cushions on the floor.

I'm curious to see how well that distributes pressure over a large area like a person's back. An inch to an inch and a half or so just doesn't seem like much cushion.

Let us know how that works out for you buddy. I don't imagine they will be in the plane long

I'm very curious to see as well...If it doesn't work, I wasted $120. Not a big loss in the grand scheme, I guess...

The inch of padding seemed adequate when squeezing the material between my fingers, but against the flat seatback, it's a bit different. We'll see.

I'm going to order a full interior anyway, so if these don't work the way I envisioned, I'll pop 'em out, and put the pre-made one's in.

Well, my home-made lightweight seatbacks failed me this week. I'm glad I figured this out at this point, rather than after I'm flying and having it cause a much larger issue. As I was getting out of the airplane the other night from an EFIS programming session, and pushed my hand thru the mesh backing...



Bummer. I did jump on a set of seatbacks from another RV-7 that a guy in TX was selling, so I'm still good to go, but bummed about this.

I had a hunch, as many of you probably did, that these wouldn't work as planned...