Making the Transition to an RV
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Scott Millhouse's trip to Vans
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Product listing of Bob Archer's internal antennae
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(copyright 2002)
Creating Seats for the RV-6A
by Lori Millsap
For several months, Dennis has encouraged me to build the seats and finish the interior of the cockpit of our RV-6A. I just had a hard time getting motivated to upholster a canoe, since we were a long way from finishing the canopy and wiring harness. It doesn’t help that I am a master procrastinator, and really didn’t know how I was going to build the seats anyway. Like the rest of this massive project, I’ve never done any kind of upholstery before, and although I’m a quilter, I don’t even really sew garments or any home décor like pillows. I am blessed with a pretty nice sewing machine, a Bernina 1130.
Well, suddenly, apparently overnight, the wiring harness was completed, the top skin was riveted in place, and the canopy was framed in…”only fiberglass to go, and then we can move the plane to the hangar!” I couldn’t be stuck trying to fit an interior in the plane while it was parked miles away, when for years I’ve had the convenience of my garage! So, finally it was time for the procrastination to come to an end.I had not completely wasted the previous months. We’d already done the research on materials, and had purchased most of what we’d need. A few odds and ends came up during construction, but they were all available locally.
Dennis had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted in a plane interior from the beginning. For one thing, he wanted to have the back of the seat covered. He also wanted some quilting to give the seat a textured look, but not too fancy. He really wanted the seat to reflect the overall design of his plane—simple, clean, effective and ergonomic.
I analyzed my nephew’s car seat to see how the upholstery fabric that fits it like a second skin was quilted and found that a ¼” foam had been used as a batting and lining fabric. We were able to find that foam at Hancock’s in the upholstery section in a variety of colors. It is called “header fabric” in some stores, and is the same material used in the headliner of a car.
After all the materials were assembled, I still realized I had no idea how to get started. So, I did what every other Southern girl does in that situation; I called my MaMa! Fortunately, my mother was available to come spend a week at my house. Between the two of us, we managed to brainstorm a basic pattern shape. We did an Internet search, and were glad to find quite a few interior pictures, especially on the “RV of the Week” photos. One really clear shot we found was on a professional upholstery shop’s page, done in leather. We used that picture to give us an idea of how to get started.
We had opted for flame-retardant cushion material we had purchased from Hancock’s Fabrics by Poly-fil called Nu-Foam. We decided to make the seat cushion from 4” thick foam, and the back cushion from 2” foam. The foam comes in 22” square pieces, and is about $20 for the 4”, and $10 for the 2”. We did find a foam supplier locally in Montgomery, Alabama, that will cut your foam to-order from a flame retardant foam that is high density grade (laser-cut), and we considered that option. The cost was not much different, but we’d have to wait for them to cut the pieces according to our pattern (instead of developing a pattern as we trimmed it down), and I wasn’t really confident enough for that. Now that I have a pattern developed, it would be pretty easy to order it precut.
The advantage of using the Nu-Foam was that it comes apart in layers, so we could pull the thick cushion apart and cut the correct angle for the slant on the seat bottom. We cut the foam in stairs like a Mayan temple and then covered the foam with a cotton cover. The back 9” of seat or so ended up 6” thick, with the cushion getting progressively thinner until the two legs that stick out on either side of the control stick are two inches thick. I had not planned to have to layer a 2” piece on top of the 4” piece of foam, so it meant I had to buy two more pieces of 2” foam (again, glad I chose a resource like Hancock’s so I could just go get more).
Once we had cut the basic shape of the seat (the seat back was a simple 16”x28” rectangle), we covered both the back cushions and the seat cushions with cotton slipcovers to create insert forms. We cut the pattern for those slipcovers out of freezer paper, and the slipcovers served the dual purpose of covering the cushion as well as testing out the fit of the cover using a material that was far easier to work with than the upholstery fabric.
Most of the pattern development was my mom’s genius. She’s been a master seamstress for my entire life, and made most of the clothes I wore, even in college. (She also did all my laundry and cleaned the kitchen all week while she was here, and that was a nice treat too!)
We have searched for months for upholstery fabric all over America—literally, including a great upholstery shop in Waynesville, Ohio, where we bought some samples on sale to use to test my sewing machine’s ability to handle upholstery fabric. Finally we ordered some yardage from Prattville’s Cloth Barn, where they had a book of automobile upholstery fabrics that are UV-fade resistant and guaranteed for 10 years, as well as being flame retardant and Scotch-guarded.
We ordered two shades of gray, one of them a black/gray check for the detail work. I ordered four yards of the main color fabric and two yards of the detail color (a two yard minimum cut was required). I thought that would be plenty of fabric, but there were just scraps of both colors remaining. I actually ended up ordering four more yards of the main fabric, but haven’t used it for anything. I’ll probably make gear bags.
To cut the pattern, Mom laid the trimmed cushions on freezer paper and just traced with a pencil. Then she cut the fabric with a ¼” seam allowance, and stitched it together, leaving one end open to hand-stitch closed after the foam was inserted.
Before we pieced the upholstered covers, we needed to have the embroidery done, as well as the quilting on the trim pieces. For the embroidery on the seat back, we found a local embroidery shop (Art Stitch Embroidery in Prattville) that was willing to do a test piece to ensure the quality of the stitch work, and then embroider both seat panels for $30. I took him oversized pieces of upholstery fabric so that it would fit his machine hoop, and he had the work done in just a couple of days. The owner did mention that I was lucky because January was his slow time of year, and that by March it could take 2-3 months to get something on his schedule.
I layered the ¼” foam with a piece of the black fabric I’d marked with lines 2” apart, and topstitched. I tried using a double-needle, but we decided a straight stitch and a single needle looked best. I stitched pieces larger than we needed, and then trimmed them down to fit the seats’ center panels.
Since the seats were 16” wide, we made the main color side panels 3” wide, and the center black fabric 10” wide. First I constructed the two seat bottom cushions, lining the top of the seat with the ¼” foam. I found the lining foam difficult to stitch through, and actually broke the walking foot on my machine at one point. So I decided not to use the foam on the sides or bottom of the cover. We centered a 14” metal zipper in the middle of the back of the cushion to allow for removal of the cover when necessary.
The back seat cover construction was much more challenging. Since Dennis wanted the frame covered as well, I designed an inner cover that holds the 2” foam insert, but an outer cover that slides over the frame itself. This plan meant that I would be stitching through several layers of upholstery fabric to build both an inner and outer cube of fabric. The outer layer would have the ¼” foam backing to make the cushion seem more plush. The very back of the seat back would need to be in two pieces so that the metal tab that holds the seat in position (the one with the circle cut-outs that adjusts the seat back angle) could pass through from the seat back to the spar.
For installation, we laid the carpet first and left enough cut out below the seat bottom so that adhesive Velcro could attach the seat to the floor of the plane. I also sewed boot covers to fit the gear sticks. We used scraps of the upholstery fabric, plus some vinyl that matched our gray interior paint, to cover the side walls. While that seemed daunting at first, we were amazed by just how fast that went together.
If you have any questions about the construction process, do not hesitate to email us and ask. I do still have my pattern available, and may be able to save you some work reinventing the wheel…er, seats.
Lori Millsap N464DM
wife of Dennis, master builder
Millbrook, AL