Building a plane

My grandfather owned a furniture store, in which he made all the items. He also fixed and upholstered other people's broken furniture.  He did it all, built the frames, and did the upholstery for chairs, sofas and such.  I used to hang around his shop as a child and I’d help him and over the years I kept up on my sewing.  I’m no expert, but I do pretty well with a sewing machine and a needle and thread, so about year and a half ago when my friend asked if I wanted to go to Montana to visit his father who’s building a plane and work on the upholstery for it, (and also work on the instrument panel since I know computer systems as well) I jumped at it!

My friend Karl’s father is an engineer and when he visits, we usually have fun with little projects like making electrostatic speakers, or an amp.  He’s built planes before, but this time I was going to help, and it was the biggest project I ever worked on. 

When we got to his house, the plane body was coming along nicely, and the engine was sitting on a table being worked on.  The material he wanted was picked out for me, and everything was ready for me to get to work.  The plane is a two-seater CYGNET FA-2A with a small luggage net in back of the passenger seat. 

I didn’t have to build the seats from scratch, he got seats from an old plane from a junk yard.  The seats needed some work though, the material was faded and torn so, they looked pretty ratty.  The metal frame of the chairs looked a little rusted and faded as well (the plane they got them from was old) so I went to the local hardware store and picked up some rust stripper for hard-to-reach area a sander would be difficult to reach and since I was using harsh chemicals, I also picked up some rubber gloves, goggles and a respirator.  I also got some acid-free rust remover just in case.  When I got back to the house I went to work. 

The seats are tandem and they were already out for me to work on them. I took them apart so there was the back rest and the seat, I also had to take out the railing that the seats sit on in the plane.  I then started to take off the old fabric and foam, after I did this, I started sanding off all the rust I could.  Luckily under the fabric the rust wasn’t bad, all of the above steps took a few hours and since I started late in the day I did as much as I could while we had light.  This was always relaxing to me, I put Spotify on my phone with noise canceling headphones and did my thing.  After taking off as much rust and paint as I could with the sander, I used rust stripper on the parts of the seats the grinder couldn’t get to.  I used these chemicals on the other side of the house so they wouldn’t irritate my friends, they’re pretty strong.  This part to me has never been fun because you have to wear the hot mask and respirator, but it’s part of the job.  When I was done the chair frames looked pretty good.  I put the seat rails and smaller part in the rust stripper bath which cleaned off the rust and paint nicely.  After rinsing off the chemicals with water and drying them as thoroughly as I could I put them in the oven on low for a little while to make sure the tubing on the inside was dry.  I re-installed the railing in the plane and greased it so the seat would move smoothly.  Then I primed the seats, put them in the oven to dry (this did one of two things, the oven of course helped the primer and paint dry faster, but also leaving them outside to dry could make it so dirt and dust could adhere to the paint making it look ugly, even though these are seats and won’t be the most visible part, I wanted them to look nice).  After the primer was dry, I painted both seats and put them back in the oven.  I did this a few times to give the seats more than one coat of paint.  When the paint was dry, I polished the metal to make them look nice and shiny (this took a while, didn’t finish it in one day). 

I was in the home stretch, just had to cut the fabric and foam for the chairs and put everything together.  I used some upholstery scissors to cut the material and foam (which is also fire resistant) for the seats. The seat materiel they picked out was a green wool blend fabric (to match the nose of the plane).  We used this material because wool is flame and fade-resistant, plus its cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter than say leather. 

I put the foam on the front seat and then the material and I did the same for the back.  I then put the seats together, first I bolted in the back seat after which greased the bottom of the front seat that would fit on the rail, and installed it.  I then sat in the front seat, pulled the lever to push it back and it went back nice and smoothly. 

I tried to keep my friend and his father away from what I was doing the best I could, I wanted it to be a surprise.  I called them over and they loved the look.

From then on there was only little things for me to do, I know nothing about engines.  I did some other interior work, cleaning and such until they were ready to put in the navigation computer and instrument panel.  We had to get back to California, Karl had to get some work done.  We planned on going back a little later on but Covid happened and we couldn't.  We’re going to go back soon to finish the plane, I’ll help with the navigation computer and instrument panel like I was going to.  Unfortunately, since it's only a 2-seater we’ll have to take turns riding in it, but it’ll be fun.