Rivited Aluminum bomber seat finished finally! Many pics.

I've had both seats more or less done for a while, but had been majorly stuck on edging them until yesterday. I screwed myself when I put so many curves in the sides of the seat, made it very difficult to shrink and stretch double sided edge to follow. So I ended up using a single sided wire edge riveted on. I think it looks pretty cool, and it was only a major pain in the ***, as opposed to an impossible one. And as a bonus, it does what is's supposed to as far as stiffening and covering sharp edges.

Each seat is made from 21 seperate parts, and has 382 hand bucked rivets. Here's some pics:

 

Wow, Man. Those are killer. The dedication is admirable. Nice job!

 

Those are B-E-A-Utiful. Very nice work.

 

Excellent work!!!looks awesome!!!!!

 

Man,

They are the MOST!!!!!

Danny

 

WOW. I hate talented people......Nice

 

I bet your hands are still vibratin'...

 

Simply awesome!!

 

BAD *** , I mean comfertable *** , any way those are COOL & BAD *** .

 

you have to much free time,get a job! seriously,those look absolutely amazing!

 

That is the mostest bestest looking seat I have ever seen!

I bid 100 bucks. OH sorry, wrong site.

Amazing work.

 

Nice work. I like the arrow shaped piece on the sides.

 

GREAT WORK..That took lots of time and thought.Howard Hughes would be
green...

 

WAY COOL Any pics of them going together? Just curious as to the hours per seat to build? MY wife would probably divorce me if I spent so many hours on a seat lol oh well it would feel good on her *** though so maybe not. I have to say it again WAY COOL. I love seeing this kind of stuff.

 

Cool, the only thing missing is the Zinc Chromate.

 

Thanks for the words everyone! Makes a stupid big project like those seem worthwhile.

I dunno how long each one takes, yet. Making the panels of the first seat took an absurd amount of time, because I was making patterns and test fitting with posterboard as I went. The panels for the second seat were cut, bent, beaded and had holes drilled in about 7-8 hours. Same with the edging. On this first one I've spent an entire week of nights after work making (and screwing up) different edging before figuring out what worked. So now I should be able to do the second one kinda efficiently.

Hopefully I'm not getting a divorce. Wifey can keep herself entertained for hours at a time.

 

And my ears are still ringin. Even with ear muffs, those aluminum panels make the rivet gun LOUD Worth it though.

 

+1 to all that was posted above.

 

Love these rivets I just bought 10 lbs of 3/16" aluminum rivets.
I justed talked to my Grand mother in law, she was a Riveter (like Rosie) in WWII and she showed me how to use them, good stuff.

 

haha, 10 lbs?? That's prolly like 14,000 rivets or so! Should be a lifetime supply.

That's cool that you mention your grandma in law being a riveter. When I mentioned to a friend that I was gonna make these, he says "Can you figure out the solid rivets?" Then he says, "Wait, half the country drove rivets during WW2, you can handle it"

 

That's right, my grandma told me they were working in teams of two, one girl with the rivet gun on the outside of the plane, the other girl on the inside with a "hammer" a heavy piece of iron to act as a counter wheight to pinch the rivet.
I get the rivets here, at an aircraft surplus store, for $8/lbs.

 

Is that what people mean when they say "bucking a rivet or blind riveting????" I have never seen how this type of rivet proccess is done, any place I could see better pics/proccess of it? Google came up empty...Ken

 

Wow those are some nice seats. Its always better when you can make something yourself. Good job!

 

Bucking, yes. That describes installing a solid rivet. You use a rivet gun on the outside, and hold a "bucking bar" on the backside. The bucking bar can be any fairly solid, very smooth hunk of steel, I polished an old body dolly, as well as a chink of 2" square I got from somewhere.

Blind riveting is simply when you can't see the backside of the rivet. You'll often see POP rivets referred to as blind rivets in modern times, but you can blind rivet with solids. You just need a: an ***istant, or b: to be able to reach the back of the rivet with a bucking bar of some kind.

As far as pics or info, I dunno. I found a little info about it on Metalmeet, but not really an in depth how to. Once I decided to just try it, I can see why. It's kinda like trying to tell someone how to paint a car. Figuring out the process takes like 30 seconds. Getting the rivet gun set and developing a feel takes a little longer. I made a practice board with some holes, and smashed a few rivets before I got the hang of it.

 

*****in seat. I dig the arrow on the sides. How many hours do u have in it?

 

Very,very,nice Work.

 

Damn nice seats!

Rex

 

NIIIIIICE. love the edging.

 

It's all been said!