Refurbishing the passenger seats, Part 3: All sorts of odd jobs and layers of history

Suomeksi

The Turku team of Caravelle volunteers has been working hard this autumn and the interior work in the cabin has progressed well. The front part of the cabin, which will be furnished with passenger seats, is now separated from the rear part with refurbished partitions. The surfacing material is in place on the walls and ceiling, electrical wiring has been installed and the new distribution panel connected. Only the strip of led lighting in the ceiling is missing. All floorboards are in place, but the carpet is waiting to be installed before the seats are brought in. The cabin curtain tracks have been fastened on the new wall covering and the curtain slides were fiddled back on the track. Everything is ready for installing the curtains.  

Interior refurbishment has been started also in the rear section of the cabin. This part will be an open exhibition area which can also be used for gatherings and meetings. The new wall surfacing material progressed well before the winter break. Hopefully we can start building a Caravelle exhibition in the spring.

Photo 1: Caravelle volunteers from the Turku team and the Helsinki team having a coffee break.

This blog talks about the progress of the passenger seat refurbishment. The so-called Helsinki team has been responsible for this work. (Funny though that not one of the four members of the Helsinki team actually comes to Turku from Helsinki…)

In the beginning of this autumn we were hoping that there will be one refurbished demo seat ready before the winter, fitted with new padding and “dressed” in repaired seat covers. We didn’t quite reach this goal.

The refurbishment work includes four seat rows, i.e. 8 seat frames with a total of 19 individual seats. These include five 2-person seats and four 3-person seats. Mechanisms of the armrests and seat tables were repaired, the broken seat back structures were reinforced and broken seat back rubber bands were replaced. Fortunately we have some seat frames in the storage container, and they have been stripped of various spare parts.

Photo 2: The seat backs have needed all kinds of repair and maintenance. Photo by Erja Reinikainen.

When dismantling the seats we have experienced some time travelling: the arm rest shield on the aisle side seat holds a good deposit of “history” from the time when the aircraft carried passengers. In this case this means nondescript lint. Among hair, dog hair, dried bread and other food residue, etc. we have found hair pins and coins, dropped by the passengers, and various kinds of small metal parts, which probably have escaped from the fingers of technical staff. The Caravelle team has now a collection of some Swedish crowns, but the big hoard of gold has not been found yet.

The seat frames have been painted several times when they were in use from the 1960s to the 1980s. (You may remember that the seats are from the Transwede Caravelle 10BR (SE-DEC) which was damaged beyond repair in an unsuccessful take-off in Arlanda in January 1978) The latest layer of the cream white paint was crackled and had partly peeled off. The painted surface is mainly visible on the seat legs and on the baggage guard rail, which prevents the baggage under the seat from moving uncontrolled on the floor. From these parts of the seat the layers of paint were sanded off before repainting. The sanding work was done outdoors, in rainy weather under the Caravelle’s wing. When sanding, we found some chewing gum under the seats, placed there conveniently out of sight at the time.

Photo 3: The seat frames were sanded under the Caravelle’s win.

Photo 4: The seat frames have been painted with primer and are drying in the autumn sun.

Towards the end of October the passenger seat legs and baggage guard rails were painted. The undercoat paint could be applied outside but the topcoat painting was done in the Caravelle area “container office” as the weather got colder. The “office” has proved to be very multifunctional, it serves the volunteers as an office, visitor centre, storage space, coffee room, paint shop and as workspace for the interior refurbishment.

Photo 5: Topcoat painting under way in the office.

The passenger seat frames were stored for the winter in the DC-3 fuselage which is located beside the Caravelle. This aircraft (DO-5) served last in Utti as a ground training device for the paratroopers and it has canvas seats by the walls with a wide empty space in the middle. So the DC-3 is quite suitable to be used as a storage – but there seemed to be mice dwelling in it. Small uninvited visitors are not wanted to build nests in the foamed plastic pieces, cut for the passenger seat padding. Therefore we decided to move the padding material to the sea container for the winter.

Photo 6: Caravelle seat frames and new padding material stored inside the DC-3.

Photos by Jouko Tarponen except if otherwise mentioned.