11 Nov 04 - Confusion with the Seats!

We only had about an hour tonight to work on the project, and most of that was spent trying to figure out the hinges on the bottom of the seatbacks. Of course, we didn't figure it out until right before it was time to quit, so not much was accomplished other than being confused.

Well, also we got the side braces for the seat backs (Part F-637B, if you really wanted to know) back from Don. Who's Don? Don is a machinist friend who has tools (and skills) that make certain things much easier than they would be otherwise. We've given him a few parts that we were having trouble with, and he generally gets them done in about 5 minutes. The "problem parts" in this case were the little the little notches that need to be put in the bottom of the seat back side braces so the hinge can fit in there nicely. This is a pain to do with a file, and it was easy for Don.

Post-Don side braces for the seat backs. They're ready to go!

Is this how it fits? We weren't sure. (When I took this picture, we were about 10 minutes from figuring out the answer is "yes.")

Source of the confusion. I'll explain below.

One of the drawings in the plans (the one pictured above, actually. I hope I'm not breaking any copyright laws) says "15 1/2 total length" with regard to the hinge on the bottom. If you look closely (which I didn't do), it specifies that this measurement is from the end hinge hang-down-thing (is there a technical term for this? I have no idea) to the other end hinge hang-down-thing, not the entire length of the hinge. The length of the seat is 16 inches, so if you cut the hinge length to 15 1/2 inches, it won't fit like you want it to.

Also, there's a note that says "put this outboard hinge blah blah blah on the right seat" - well, that's great, but what are you supposed to do for the left seat? It took us awhile to realize that this is because the drawing that they have is for the left seat, and you're just supposed to flip it for the right seat. Hmmm. Lessons learned:

• End of a long day is not the best time to be trying to read plans.
• Read all the directions before you start cutting metal. There are other places in the plans that say "this is 16 inches" that we didn't find until we had wasted about 15 1/2 inches of hinge.

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