Ch 8.7: Inside Seat Belts

The front center seat belt support comes from the aluminum tube that was already installed in the front center heat duct in Ch 6.  For the rear, the remaining aft portion of the heat duct is built and the same style aluminum tube is used.

Aft heat duct assembled with 7-ply reinforcement
curing over seat belt attach tube.

The difference with the aft heat duct is that it has a rear part that angles up to meet the LG bulkhead and also includes a fiberglass tube "transition piece" that has to be fabricated and installed.

Here you can see the aft heat duct assembled and the 7-ply reinforcement of glass lay'ed up on top and over the seat belt attach tube just like I did in Ch 6.

Next I built the transition piece using a left over piece of urethane foam. This piece connects the heat duct to the heat supply that will come from a heat muff on the engine exhaust pipe. This is how you can keep you toes warm in the winter or at high altitudes.

I shaped it, covered it with box tape for release, and applied 2-ply BID. To the right is is the transition piece after removing the foam from inside and prior to cutting to length.  To the left is the piece installed in the duct.

Baker Cozy Unique:  

Remember, I widened the seat back brace to allow for a wider map pocket up front.  We'll since the duct is only half that width, I had to add some foam up front to create a pleasant looking transition to the wider base of the seat back brace.  I just added some small pieces of foam on each side, shaped for a nice transition, and glassed with 2ply BID. 

Installation:  
The part is installed per normal (flox, 2 BID tape the seams, ect) and then an additional 7-ply reinforcement is added across the seat belt attachment tube and along the floor approx 6".  I tried this as one 7-ply layup and it worked ok but I didn't anticipate that the 7 layers of glass would be hard to lay down correctly over the attachment tube.  I got it down ok with no air bubbles but was worried for a little bit.  This is also done on the front seat and I did it the same way...probably shouldn't have...I wasn't as lucky getting it all down properly and had a few air bubbles to fill.  I also widened and lengthened each piece of glass by 1/2 " to allow for a smooth transition of the layers.  The black lines you see are my sharpie marks for cutting.  You can see that the plys got a little unruly while laying them down but it came out ok.  I don't know how some builders get such neat, straight, and pretty glass work...I just can't seem to do it.


TIP:  If I were to do it over again, I would follow a tip from Marc Z in the archives and split the length of the plys so that I could lay up alternating plys on each side and get each ply to lay down correctly across the top, overlapping them from each side across the width of the duct.  You'll have 7 ply's on the floor but 14 on top of the duct.

Ok....seat belt attachments done...time to check back in with the headrest.

cab

Ch 8.6: Outside Seat Belt Attachments

Next is the work to install the outside seat belt attach points for the front and back seats.

The outside attachments involve a birch reinforcement piece cut to fit the angle of the fuselage sides and bottom at the lower longeron. These are floxed in and glassed over...2 fwd, 2 aft.

On top of the birch supports are mounted 2" wide aluminum angle brackets that will be used to connect the seat belt.  These are cut from a piece of AL angle, holes drilled, and then they are used as templates to drill the holes through the birch support and the fuselage for the mounting bolts.

No Step.  Normally you would also install an exterior step at the same time that matches up with the pilots left seat belt attach point,,,but on the exterior of course.  As of right now, I've decided not to install a step.  I'm tentatively planning to modify the plane with extended strakes (aka Cozy Girl Strakes) to provide more elbow/storage room inside and if I do that, the step would be in the wrong place.  If I do anything, I might consider a retractable step like Marc Z installed.

Installed birch support, glassed & drillled.
Ready to install aluminum bracket.

Deviation:  As with a few other builders, the bolts to attach the brackets were not quite long enough.  I don't know if this is because some of us aren't counterboring the outside of the longeron deep enough or what, but I didn't want to go too far.  Your mileage may vary.  Marc Z. recommended in an archive email not to counterbore the hole more than approx halfway through the thickness of the longeron.  Well for me, that meant getting bolts that were just a bit longer.  I ended up using -AN-525-416-"18" instead of -"16".






After cleaning the brackets with Alumiprep and Alodining them for corrosion protection, I floxed them to the hardpoints and installed the bolts.

UPDATE (08/31/13):  I ended up using one set of "-16" bolts in the front passenger side.  The -"18" was a little long.  I guess I counterbored that side a little deeper than planned.



cab

Ch 8.1 - 8.5: Headrest - Part 1/2

Ch 8 is fairly short and deals with a few interior details.  It starts with the shoulder support and headrest.

Like many builders, I'm not a big fan of the triangular shaped headrests in the plans.  They serve the purpose I suppose but they look like something that you would find in the Conehead's car.  They just doesn't fit with the rest of the curved design of the Cozy.

For the Baker Cozy, I want shorter headrests that fit

1986 Saab 9000 Turbo Headrests (from John Slade's website)

the styling better.  Looking through other builders blogs, I found a couple of people who used Saab 9000 Turbo headrests from the late 80's.  They look great and they curve down your neck to provide better support.  I'd like to find some of these if I can...or something like them.  (update below)



Until then, I can only cut and assemble the foam for the shoulder support because I need to install whatever mechanism is needed to hold the headrests before I can glass anything.  Here is a pic of the shoulder support assembled with dry wall screws...waiting for me to find some headrests.  I'll create a part II update for this this when I resume work on it.

So for now...I'll press on with steps 6 & 7 of Ch 8.

cab



UPDATE: (08/24/13...yea..same day I know)  I got to searching the internet for Saab headrests and could not locate the 9000 versions like the ones above anywhere...I think they're just too old.  I did however find some similar ones from an 03 Saab 9-5 and went ahead and bought them off Ebay...$39 each.  I'm hoping they work out.  They look like they will provide the same kind of neck. and head support and they look much better than the Conehead style IMHO.