Isaac Shultz's Sonex Project

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.

Please excuse the poor video editing and the watermark, I'm looking for some better software to edit more videos like this. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. Also when I recorded I thought the existing videos were portrait so that's why it's mixed up, hopefully it's not too distracting. I'd like to give a big thank you to everyone who has helped me out with my project Mr John Paul Shadwick Stan Whitfield Ron Sipple Ralph and Joyce Shultz Paul and Beth Duff Mario Gonzalez Paul Hockin Kevin White Nicholette Shultz Gordon Fern Anon Anon Jeannette Shultz Mike David Jonathan and Julia Wolfe Jon Palmstrom Laurie Burns Donna Mickel Dana Baker Mrs Nadine Eric Johnson Tammy Reap Hayes Jeff Shultz Brandon Lenart WP Marsh Michael Couillard Mr Anonymous Joe And Judy Green Mrs Brenda Mickey Gonzalez Mrs Cathy Paul and Vickie Laberge Judy and Roger Kemmerle Fico Gonzelaz

Today I got a ton of work done on my hydraulic brakes system. I assembled the mount for my master cylinder and through some testing and pretending to sit in the cockpit to get a feel for where I want my brake lever, I located the exact position. I drilled and clecoed the whole assembly. with it in place, the real work behind hydraulic brakes set in. I cut my 12' length of tubing into two pieces, one for each brake. In order for the brake lines to get from the master cylinder inside the plane, to the brakes on the wheels, I had to drill a couple holes in the firewall at the front of the plane. One of the worst things that can go wrong with these brakes is having a line break. If that happened I would loose all pressure and have no brakes. If the brake line touches something, it will likely vibrate against it in flight, if it does that, eventually it will break. To prevent my lines from breaking and loosing their fluid, I use a larger size tubing, that just bar...

Part 1: The Rudder Pedals I laid out the cuts I'd need to make, the holes I'd need to drill, and gathered my hardware. Then I pinned two blocks together using a  drill bit, and updrilled them to 3/16" together for perfect alignment, once drilled I put  the bolt through and tightened it. I drilled them to 1/8" and cut them on the bandsaw  I cleaned up the edges on the sanding wheel, and we were off to the races! I located the center holes, these were where the steel tube of the rudder pedals would come through. I used a 1" spade bit to boar through the phenolic, and yes, this freed up about 3.5 square inches of COMPRESSED phenolic, and sent it all over the work bench. Now that the holes were drilled, I used the Dremel, with a sanding tip, to ream them so that they fit with minimal friction. Taking a bit of extra time on this was well worth it since it made my rudder pedals silky smooth, like ...