Rip em and Strip em…

So obviously the first thing to do when you get new seats is to strip em down and give them a good once over.  Luckily for us, both seats pass with flying colors and will be good to go for the restoration.

But all this talk about weight, the question is will it really be worth the fuss?

To answer the question, again, baseline weights are needed.  Knowing what we are starting with will give us an idea of just how much we saved once they are back from Aviation Creations.

The Skywagon came with an articulating pilot seat, and a standard co pilot.  We could of course gone really crazy and tossed the articulating seat for a standard seat to save even more pounds, but for this project, although we are weight conscious, we are not being insane.  (There will be some comfort) So the articulating pilot seat goes back in.

So here’s the deal…  Articulating Pilot w/ upholstery: 21 lbs.  Co Pilot w/ upholstery: 14.86 lbs.  Keep in mind that I suspect that the sheep skin is a bit on the heavier side, but out comes 35.86 lbs of front seats.  The goal for the new seats (finished) will be 25 lbs.  For the C170, Ron was able to shave off 6 lbs per seat.  Hopefully we will be able to do the same.

But what about the articulating seat vs/ the standard seat?  What are those guys actually saving who forgo the articulating seats in lieu of the standard seat?

Stripped, our un-upholstered articulating seat weighed 10 lbs.  The standard seat (stripped) weighed 6.46 lbs.  So is it worth the extra 3.5?  I really don’t know, but for me… it’s stayin.