Kydex

I felt like I wasted a lot of time today, trying to get a decent mould made for the door interior panels. The one I made from plaster didn’t work, so I made one from wood. Then I spent about an hour trying to form some Kydex with the heat gun. It didn’t yield good results, so I heated a small sheet in the oven. This was more successful.

My very first attempt still looks quite good, except where I overheated the sheet, but amazingly the whole sheet is formed rather well.

Even on the one I made today, it is still only the cover for the latching mechanism and I need to bond it to the rest of the sheet. I made some test patches with adhesive, and they appear to have taken quite well. I’ll try to pull them apart tomorrow.

This evening I made some squabs for the right front seat to test the sitting height with regard to the eye line under the wing. The squab is 40mm (1 1/2”) thickness, and this is essentially that maximum thickness before I am unable to see out the window and under the wing without lowering my head to do so. I’ll probably make the squabs thicker at the front of the seat to support the thighs well.