Work starts on the interior

I started working on building the jump seat for the dining "room" table this weekend.  I started by measuring the height and depth of the existing fold-down bed and translating those dimensions to the jump seat.  I then drew up a quick full size layout/sketch on an old piece of butcher paper and when I was convinced I could make it work, I started committing it to wood.  I used an old scrap of birch plywood I had laying around the shop.  I cut the seat platform and the back angle and left the edge that meets the body metal untrimmed.  I held the side piece to the body metal and transferred the shape to the wood using a simple compass with a pencil mounted to it.  I cut both sides of the seat base and test fit to be sure it sat OK.  I added the front  panel and some support bracing for structure.

I then cut the seat bottom and back from scraps of plywood and attached the foam to the wood with spray glue.  The foam for the bottom cushion is 4" thick and the foam for the back is 2" think.  I made a mistake here, I felt the foam in the store and it seemed just right for density, however, once I had it made and I actually got to sit on it, it was pretty hard.  Oh well, I will just have to live with it now I guess.

 

 

I used a blind insert to attach the seat to the body steel where I could not reach the nuts, and I used simple 1/4-20 bolts to attach the seat where I had access.

 

The next trick was to upholster the foam/plywood cushions.  I started by gluing a piece of 1/2" plus pad to the back of the center section of vinyl and after some careful measurements, I sewed the decorative stitch lines down the center section.

 
I then measured out the width of the edge pieces for the top of the cushion and cut them to width.  I glued  plus pad to these as well, and stitched them to the newly created center section.  This gave me the assembly that would become the top, or sitting surface for the cushion.

I placed this on top of the seat and marked out the top pad using the foam as a pattern.  I made up my contrasting edge binding and cut the side panels to width.  All that was left, was to assemble the sides to the top with the binding at the seam.

The binding foot for my old Mitsubishi sewing machine made pretty easy work of this.  The only trick was the corners, you need to go very slowly around the corners or it would be impossible to stay on target with the stitch line.
I wrapped the material around the edges of the plywood base board and stapled it in place.

I was pretty happy with my first cushion.  I think it will go a lot faster for the seat back and the rest of the cushions.
Last night I applied the cherry color stain to the base.  It came out pretty good.  I will put up those pics soon.