Fabricating a bucket seat

[Peppy]

Rich asked me for a tutorial on facebook. Here's some pictures I have of the process. First the finished seat-


It started out as an old boat frame. Was about 40" between the bends. The bends were 8" radius. This was attempt #2, #1 broke at a snap hole that was in the frame. Had to start again with a bar without holes. I was guessing at 40" being enough I held a tape around me as a chair and it seemed to be a good number, and we had the bars laying around. To get the curve between the leg bends I put it in the crown-arch and ran it through, got to the end and tightened the nut a 1/4 turn and ran it through again. Did that many times. When it got close I man-handeled it to bring it closer together. Thats when I broke the first bar.

You can see my Fabrication Fluid in that shot. Took quite a few to get the job done.

The upper part was a straight bar bent in the same fashion with the crown-arch. In this shot I taped them together and tried to imagine it with foam on it. I pop riveted a small piece of aluminum to the upper bar and the lower bar to stabilize it. Then I made a quick paper pattern of the lower piece and cut a piece of HDPE plastic about 1/16" thick from the pattern. Then I put seam tape on the bar and stuck the plastic to it. I stapled the plastic to the plywood base and pop riveted the plastic to the bar. At this point it was very stable and made working with it easier. I did the same for the top piece.



The it only needed foam. I cut channels in the foam to allow for the thickness of the tubing. It was 3" super soft foam which made upholstering it difficult. Harder foam would have made it simpler.


Then I took some dust cloth and glued it to the foam and the frame to keep the foam in place and give a little more structure to the soft foam. Then I put 1/2" foam on top of the dustcloth. Then the pattern.


I was going to put a seam and a stretcher in where the lower bar went on the inside back, but I wanted the smooth look to match my boat (more on the boat at a later date) This also made the upholstery more difficult. Had I put in a stretcher I would have pop riveted velcro to the bar and sewed the other half to the stretcher multiple times. The stretcher would have needed to be shaped or cut every couple inches. I would've gone with the cuts to simplify it.

I don't have any sewing pictures as that was done by my wonderful and talented coworker. Turned out awesome any way. Here's the back-

When you see the boat it'll make sense. It looks so bitchin' I had to dress up to sit in it-

[fragged8]

Great work Peppy !!

I love your creativity, don't ever give that up :-)

And thank you
Rich