The recently painted aft seat hinges have sufficiently dried enough to be installed onto the F-1237G seat back braces so thought it would be good to complete the seats today … little did I know they would not get completed. The aft F-1237F aft hinges were Clecoed onto the F-1237G seat back braces and then riveted in place.
Securing the F-1237F aft hinge onto the F-1237G
seat back brace with Clecos.
Using the pneumatic rivet puller to rivet the F-1237F
aft hinge onto the F-1237G seat back brace.
Finished seat back brace assemblies.
After the F-1237F aft hinges were riveted onto the F-1237G seat back braces the long hinge pin previously set aside requires being cut into two 14 1/2" long pieces and four 5 1/2" long pieces. After the hinge pieces are cut and dressed on the Scotch-Brite wheel the last 1” of each hinge pin is bent to 90 degrees. I ended up using a hand hack saw to cut the pins … those pins are hard steel so it took a while. If I were to do it again, I would use the Dremel with a cutoff wheel.
Doing it the hard way … cutting the hinge pins
with a hand hack saw.
Using the seaming tool to make a 1" 90
degree bend on each of the six hinge pins.
All six hinge pins cut to size and bent to 90
degrees … ready for instilling the seats into the fuselage.
Before installing the seat backs in the fuselage, the F-1237G seat back brace assembly requires a #52 hole drilled in it so the hinge pin can be safety wired after the brace is attached to the seat back.
Seatback brace assembly mated with a seat back.
The excitement was building … it’s finally time to install the seat back assemblies in the fuselage. The euphoria was short lived. The hinge pins would not go into the hinges. Huston … we have a problem. Looking closely at the problem quickly revealed the error. In my haste last fall to quickly get parts ready for the last good priming weather, I missed performing the step to remove the center two eyelets on the F-1237E hinges. Actually, it was easy to miss because it was not a step in the instructions but a reference in a figure on the prints. My bad. As one can imagine, I became unhinged for a few moments and had some choice words for myself. But now this opens up a whole can of worms in that I have to figure out a good way to remove the center two eyelets on each of the four hinges without creating more problems. Need to think about this a bit.
This is a colossal screw-up on my part! I’ve got a few ideas for a quick easy fix, but want to practice on some scrap material first.
