I spent a good part of the day yesterday building my seat. I added an extra vertical strip to make it 2" wider but kept the 36" vertical dimension. It definitely was a little tedious but once in the groove, kinda fun to construct. I rounded the edges of each aluminum strip, scuffed with a scotch brite, and pre-painted each strip prior to assembly. I positioned the weave on a thick piece of corrugated cardboard and taped down the 36" verticals to hold everything in place. Then I center punched and drilled through the aluminum into the cardboard. Once done riveting, it was easy to just peel the whole thing off the cardboard. It came out really nice. It's light, strong and surprisingly rigid. Now, the bad part....I think the 36" vertical dimension is too short for me. With the tail wheel on the ground I felt like I was leaning way too far back. I propped up the tail with my bike stand to simulate level flight and I felt like I would definitely be slipping forward all the time. There seems to not be enough length to form a "seat". I only have an inch or so of head room and my feet with bent knees are almost touching the firewall and my knees the top bar of station #2. I can't see having enough room for the rudder pedals. I'm 5'9" 170lbs. My first thought was that maybe it will stretch over time? Seems pretty rigid. I will probably add 6" extensions to the verticals and play around with it a little and eventually build another one.
