Seat cushions for ASK21

I'm looking for a glider friendly seat cushion maker.

The original factory cushions are a bit thin and I was wondering if another club or commercial operator has a best solution for this. Normaly I'd take the old thin cushions to a local upholstery shop for fattening.

I've used my Sheep Skinned parachute, however my students wonder if it's a precursor to an unexpected solo.

Jeff Banks
Alaska

I'm glad that I upgraded my seat (and head rest) cushion to Conform foam. It is comfortable and it absorbs energy (like a shock absorber) rather than returning the energy of rapid compression with a bounce (like an air filled tire). I chose the stiffer foam and found that body heat softens it up even when I'm wearing several layers of clothing in cold weather.

At 23:20 03 December 2015, wrote:
I'm looking for a glider friendly seat cushion maker.

The original factory cushions are a bit thin and I was wondering if
another
club or commercial operator has a best solution for this. Normaly
I'd take
the old thin cushions to a local upholstery shop for fattening.

I've used my Sheep Skinned parachute, however my students
wonder if it's a
precursor to an unexpected solo.

Jeff Banks
Alaska


Jeff,
Please don't jump.

JC

On Thursday, December 3, 2015 at 3:20:35 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I'm looking for a glider friendly seat cushion maker.

The original factory cushions are a bit thin and I was wondering if another club or commercial operator has a best solution for this. Normaly I'd take the old thin cushions to a local upholstery shop for fattening.

Jeff:

Take the old ones in for a pattern, and request they use one layer of blue and one layer of pink TemperFoam, and cut them and the outer liner a bit longer than original so the cushions actually come all the way up a smidge beyond the seat top. The whole package will shrink a little over time, so this allows you to have shoulder blade padding till the fabric dies.

If you have them put a zipper up one side, you can pull them apart and wash
the covers periodically. We actually had a velcro access side, but it became stiff with UV after a few seasons.

If you really wanted to be particular, you could contact an aircraft upholstery shop and purchase fabric there ( for FAA flame retardant requirement) that you liked, to provide to your local upholstery shop.

Best wishes,

Cindy

Confor foam (used to be called Temperfoam), as son of flubber and Cindy suggest, is the stuff to use.

Available at http://www.cumulus-soaring.com/e-a-r.htm as well as other suppliers.

For maximum safety benefit, and comfort too, I recommend using the green (extra firm). Even though in cold weather it will be hard as a rock for a few minutes, it'll soften up and conform to your body in not time. Extremely comfortable over a long period as it evenly supports the body.

The extra firm absorbs more energy in compressive loading that does the less dense versions, though for thick, more cushy seating, as well as initial comfort, less dense foams like blue and pink are often layered together - - and that's fine, and what I have in my power plane, as long as there's plenty of room for a thicker cushion. In a glider that's not always or often the case, so you want to use the dense version to maximize the absorption over the minimal distance available to protect the spine.

Confor does not do UV or abrasion well, it must be covered to last. When making properly constructed seat cushions (i.e. not just wrapped in a pillow cover and thrown in a glider), it's often covered with a thin, 1/4" thick layer of cheap polyfoam before fitting the cover ,this allows the cover to fit better.

If building your own seats and needing to shape the foam, an old electric kitchen knife works well, a band saw is nice to have but you can do without it. If you have to sand it, it makes a helluva mess and you will end up looking like a green smurf. Glue and laminate using 3M 77 or 90 spray adhesive..

It's easy to glue layers to get thicker, and hard to cut a thick slab when you need thinner - a consideration when ordering.

bumper