Isaac Shultz's Sonex Project

The cowling has had pilot drilled hinges held on by clecos for a while now. It was time to updrill and rivet. I updrilled from the pilot #40 hole to the rivet sized #30 (about 1/8"). An important step I performed was sealing the fiberglass. After the holes were updrilled and carefully deburred, I dropped just a little bit of super glue into the hole to wick into the fiberglass and help prevent deterioration of the hole.  With the holes updrilled all that remained was to rivet the hinges on. The cowling looks so much cleaner now that it doesn't have 30 odd clecos hanging off, ready to catch on something at any time.  I also worked on my side panels for the cockpit interior. These started life as scraps of cardboard tapes together load a crude template but we're refined until I had perfect patterns. Once I had reliable patterns I cut them out from corrugated plastic. I played with what I wanted to the designs to look like and eventually settled on some pocket l...

The back cushion was just a practice run for the bottom cushion. The stick wells make this shape far more complex and dynamic. I started by sewing all the top pieces together so that I had 1 top and 1 bottom.  Then I started sewing the orange side parts on and oh boy there were a lot of them. Once I had all the sides on, except the very back part where I would out the zipper, I started the arduous process of matching the top to the bottom. I carefully aligned it, pinned it, and sewed it. Everything lined up within my tolerances and all that remained was the zipper. Zippers are very tricky. At first I thought it would be no hassle to install but even with my experience from the test piece and the back cushion it was the hardest part of the upholstery job. After the zipper was on, I pulled then cover over my foam and put both cushions in the cockpit.  I am very satisfied with how my color palate interacts. My design philosophy when refining my pain...

I learned how to use the sewing machine last night and it was so much faster than sewing my test piece by hand! It made me feel like an industrial revolution era housewife who just got a mechanized sewer. I made part callouts for every piece of fabric I needed and what color then I cut as needed to avoid mixups. I observed that there was a lot of crossover in the craftsmanship and artisanhood of sewing and building. The hardest part was the zipper. It stretched the fabric strangely and required very high precision, which was difficult to pull off. Luckily I had made a test piece with an extra zipper I had bought. This allowed me to work out all the bugs in my process and by the time I was sewing the real zipper I had a reliable method. The seat will be a little bit more difficult because the shape is more complex. I am excited to have my seats finished and installed.

Here's a sketch I made to help visualize my paint scheme and seat designs The foam and fabric ready to go, just need to cut and sew it all up.