GDay guys I want to make some seats like these - any idea how to get the swage in there without paying someone? What gauge would I make em? Neat arent they.
You might try looking at the seats that Hollywood Coss sells. A good way to get some ideas. www.hollywoodcrossspeedshop.com
There is a guy on Ebay, I know, that sells the BEST bomber seat replicas I have ever seen. Even makes bench seats! Some have old badges from various manufacturers from way back when. Tons of rivets, perfect shape, wow. And he always has several bad-ass cars in the background. The problem is that all of them I have seen go for $1,000 bucks and up per pair (or bench). Can't remeber his I.D., but if you have seen them, you know which ones I am talking about. Anyway, sorry to rant. Do a search, and check them out.
In Mr. Lage's high school sheetmetal shop class 25 years ago in Austin, Minnesota, one project we had was making a sheetmetal funnel. It had a rolled wire bead in the top section. If I remember right, we first rolled a v-groove into the upper edge, maybe 3/8" or 1/2" from the edge. Then we stuck the wire inside and used a timmers hammer to tap over the edge. I can't remember if we ran the whole thing through a different roller after it was all tapped over. Not sure. It's been 25 years. It was easy because the wire ring was a perfect circle. You'll have to be pretty careful to get the right contour around the edge of those seats. For teh rollers you can check eBay, Eastwood, or maybe one of the tool suppliers that has PEXTO or good brands of sheetmetal rollers. My guess is that they will be expen$ive. If you have time, skill, and patience, you could probably do it with a hammer, doly, vice, and chisle, though. Good luck! .
I thought those were ourt seats at first. Actully we have a buddy build em off our patterns for us. He's an 35 year plus expert metal former and made his own wire beading device that runs off a Pulmax. Also another tip is that, well on ours, the bead on the back is done with a special made stamp and die on the pulmax as well. Bead rolling the back seams can pinch the metal and looked odd as well distorting the shape. Chris
Hey, Those seats don't look to tough to fabracate, not much real metalshaping, or rivit work, mostly light roll to the seat back sides, some die/punch work, for the holes, swage/bead work, edge wire. The seat pan would probably take much longer to fab than the seat back. I'd start by makin a paper pattern/ thin cardboard, of the seat back and one of the seat pan. Build it in cardboard first, to check real-world look and fitment issues. Ya may want to hammerform the seat pan, punch lightening holes, bead/swage as design dictates, than edge wire. For the seat back, blank out the material and allow 1 and1/2 times the dia. of your edgewire to your outside measurement. Remember, this extra mater- ial gets wrapped around that edgewire, and to use a continuious wire around the seat and back so no welding of that wire will be necessary. As to the beading/swaging, ya would probably have to turn your own die for a beading machine, as the depth/shape of that swage don't look to be a standard issue. Yeah, this would be a sweet job for a Pullmax, but ya could probably fab up tooling for an air hammer,too. It would depend on whether you're going to build two, or a dozen. A bead roller/swaging mach- ine would work, but requires slow and carefull going. Swankey Devils C.C.
Hey, I'd opt for a minium of 18 gage, yes it's a little tough ta work, but a floppy seat and back would be a waste of your good time. I don't know what's available in your neck of the woods,but if ya could locate aluminum I'd use it. Swankey Devil C.C.
Check volksrods.com. They sell bomber seat plans on their home page. They look like this apparently...
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