Aluminum Bomber Seats - Sitting Nicely

Steve helped punch some holes into the seat back and base, which required some heavy equipment. He started by finding the center and working from that. He worked with a pair of calipers to mark the four-hole pattern at the bottom of the back and at the top. Steve drilled pilot holes as location points and then punched the holes using this heavy-duty hole punch tool. The punch left flat holes, but I wanted beveled edges so I de-burred the holes while Steve set up the next stage.

We had to roll the curve in the sides before we finished the holes. If you're not lucky enough to have a set of rollers, you could do this with a gas bottle or anything having the right radius.

Steve also spent some time making sure the curved corners on the two bases fit snug to the now rolled backs. To make sure it all went together okay later, Steve lined up both parts and drilled the holes on the bends for the rivets.

We then moved onto finishing the holes in the backs and the bases. This is the die that beveled the holes.

The seat back was placed in this big hand-driven punch and cranked down until we had the bevel we wanted.

I marked the rivet holes 1 1/4 inches apart and drilled them using a small air-powered drill as the two parts were held in place with clamps and skin pins. This took some time as there were approximately 65 rivets in each seat. You can see the backside of the bevels here.

I added a raised piece along the front of the seat to stop the cushion from working forward while driving. I played with some card stock to see if it would fit and determine the best way to fold it.

I transferred the fold lines to some more aluminum sheet and cut it out with this handy vice cutter, making sure that the marks from the roller were on the piece of aluminum I was not going to use, also making sure that the protection plastic was on the side that was to be visible on the seat.