Jim,

My recollection of how Joe made his King backrest was something like two U-brackets interleaved and then drilled for a bolt so as to make a hinge. One bracket attaches to the bulkhead and one to the backrest. There is some kind of limit stop to prevent the rest from flopping too far forward and a bungee to keep the rest reclined as far as it will go until you are seated and resting against it. Of course it was all elegantly done. I have not been fond of rigidly attached back rests, so maybe Joe has found a solution.

As far as your wedge of minicell goes, it sounds like you are worried that the cumulative thickness of foam will deform too much under load. Seems likely enough. I press on the foot pegs pretty hard when rolling. The other problem is reentries. Nothing is worse than ending up sitting on the backrest (because it flopped forward) or having it come out when sliding in over the back combing. So I suggest something more secure than velcro to hold backrest components together. Like Don, I like to be able to get to the storage area below the back rest. Having something that conforms a little as you squirm around in your seat is a lot more comfortable than something that is rigid.

You can probably modify you back rest to work like Vaclav shows on his website. To complement Vaclav's method, I like the carbon seat brackets that Ross Leidy made for his Outer Island. I have made something similar. If you stick with your minicell column/wedge, the wedge part could be made out of wood. However, some part of it needs to be adjustable or replaceable to make sure you can get the backrest angle you like. I have found an angle of 7 to 10 degrees to work for me.

Ted

: OK. I need suggestions on how to mount my seat back. This is in a Spring Run.
: I formed a seat out of 4" mini-cell and have a piece of mini-cell
: about 4" X 5" that sits virtical from the hull bottom up to the
: coaming ring (between the back of the seat and the rear bulkhead). For the
: seat back (backrest) I made a ) shaped piece about 14" wide with cove
: and bead strips and covered both sides with 6oz fiberglass. I will put a
: 1" piece of mini-cell on this.
: I assume I want to keep the top of the backrest at the height of the rear
: coaming ring. I was thinking of just putting a wedge of mini-cell between
: the vertical piece and backrest to get a comfortable angle. I'm afraid
: this set-up won't provide enough support for the lower part of the
: back-rest though.
: I don't know if the description gives a good enough idea of what I have but I
: would like any suggestions you have. I like the way Joe mounted the
: backrest in the King but I did not see (or remember) enough detail to make
: it like that.
:

: Thanks,
: Jim Horlacher