Lotus Europa Forums > Garage

Creafoam Bead Seat

(1/3) > >>

benbeames:
Yesterday I started making a creafoam molded seat in my S2.  This weekend I hope to trim away the excess material and cover it in black fabric.  Below are descriptions to go along with the pictures of the process so far.

Picture 1:  Old seat out. Clutch and throttle cables covered as well as seat belts.

Picture 2:  This is how the kit starts. The bag is full of something like styrofoam bb's. You mix some epoxy together, put it the bag, mix it up, seal the bag and create a vacuum with a shop vac.

Picture 3 & 4:Here' the mixed bag roughly placed into position.  I've done some basic forming of it before I put it in, but not much.

Picture 5:  This is the "Large" size bag from Bald Spot Sports and at this point I was afraid it was TOO big.

Picture 6:  So once the bag is in place, you have your driver (me) sit in it and wiggle around to settle down in it. You add vacuum and it gets rigid.You can turn the vacuum on and off to get a kind of moldable state so you can build up shoulder bolsters and what not.

Picture 7:  This is the bag locked under vacuum after I got out.  I put on some tape to better seal the bag closed and started marking a rough outline of what I'd need to cut away later.


Ben

LotusJoe:
I use the same material to make my insert on my race car seat. Then had the insert covered with cloth and soft foam.

benbeames:
I know its most often used in single seater cockpits, but since at 6'1" plus helmet I can use all the space I can get in the Europa.  Plus other seats I've tried haven't held me in place well while autocrossing.  This seemed like an interesting experiment in making a seat that is light, fits in the car, holds me in place, and isn't hurting me in some weird way.  So far, I'm very happy with the results.

cal44:
This is interesting...........like a magic bag o' beans.  Can't wait for a final outcome. 
I was hoping you would post over here............much easier to view the pix and story line together.

Mike

benbeames:
Yeah, I never intended to post it on the other forum but I couldn't  post here yesterday and was enthusiastic to talk about it.

Ben

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page