Making the other Headrests

Posted on by Jared Yates

I’ve been really busy lately, so to stay on track I started today with working in one-hour increments on the principle that one hour is better than no hours. We’ve had some exceptionally good weather, so I was able to get together with Dave for some motorcycling and wood cutting. I can build airplanes inside for the rest of the winter I figure. Today has still been productive though, since I’ve pretty much finished the welding on the front seats and have started on the back seat. Here are some pictures of the progress.

One Bearhawk Front Seat
Here is one of the front seat backs with all of the welding done. I still need to trim off the top of the receiving tubes, which I left long for the purpose of heat control during welding.
Receiving Tubes Cut Flush
Here I've cut those receiving tubes off. I also chased the inside of the tube with a large drill bit to help remove the welding slag.
The Headrest Jig
Here is a jig that I made to help keep the headrests uniform. To minimize distortion, I also tacked each side on the top and bottom before finish welding in quarters.
No need for accuracy here
When I was cutting out the steel blanks to use as the headrest endcaps, it occurred to me that I didn't really need to have a very accurate cut, since excess material outside of the line would just act as a filler metal.
One Finished End Cap
Here you can see a finished end cap.
Grinding off the Pain
I've found that my angle die grinder and a rol-loc scotchbrite pad cut through the avipro primer quite nicely. The sound and smell both remind me of the dentist's office.
Welding a Headrest
That isn't a very ergonomic position to weld in, is it...


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