hanging upholstery panels

[chickenhawk47]

To anyone, everyone--what are your different methods of attaching your interior upholstery panels (top, sides) to the fuselage tubing. I have located some, but not enough of the right sizes of clamps which are attached to my panels before upholstering, clamping over the tubing, thus they are hidden. I'm using the fairly rigid corrogated plastic for the panels which is typically used for real estate signs, light but strong enough. The ones I have located are from Seastrom Manufacturing. Interestingly, they are made both for the military and civilian world, the military version priced at over $8.00 apiece while the civilian version is $4.00 but nobody seems to have the civilian version in stock.

[mswain]

I'm a long way from worrying about interior stuff, but have you looked at the various fasteners used in the automotive interior world? There is a wide array of fasteners to hold panels in place.....but you'd probably need to have tabs in place?

[tailwind]

I used a piece of corrugated plastic sheet like used in political signs. This material is very light. I sprayed glue to the sheet and a light coat on the back of the fabric. This assembly is sandwiched between the tubing and the outer sheet metal. Then I riveted the outer skin on. There are not fasteners through the plastic sign material only the tube frame holds it in position. I will post a picture tonight.

[tailwind]

Here you can see the upholstery sandwiched between the door framing and the outside skin. This was a simple way to keep it light without having to use any fasteners to hold the upholstery.

[aerolite]

Velcro (Velcro brand) and screws in some places.