Today I spent about 2 hours putting in 10 bolts and 4 screws. The gear towers have a flange that sits against the outside skin. This is a blank flange that has to be match drilled to some pre-existing holes in the skins. It's an easy task - the kind that always ends up taking longer than expected, between drilling the holes, cleaning them up, getting the bolts in, torqued, etc.
The arms that come forward have two holes that have to be drilled through the skin and then sized for a large screw. The aft hole is easy to get at, but the forward one is buried behind the vertical support and there's no way to get to it from the inside to drill through to the skin.
I ended up drilling the aft hole that I could see to have a reference point on the outside skin. The two holes are exactly 1" apart, thankfully. So on the outside skin, I found where the blind hole SHOULD be, then using a very small drill bit I punched through the skin. That was nerve wracking. The small bit gave me some wiggle room to be a little off. My measurements were close enough so the tiny hole mated up with the hole in the weldment arm. Then I just started upsizing the drill bit size and letting it be guided by the steel hole. Since steel is so much harder than the aluminum, by the time I had gone through a few bit sizes to the final 3/16", the holes were matched pretty well. The arm is secured with two #10 screws and nuts. I countersunk the skin and underlying aluminum layers enough to make the screw heads lie flat with the skin.
I don't necessarily have to order seats and an interior immediately, but given that there is a 6 month backlog at the company I'll be using, I may as well order sooner rather than later. I'll be using Classic Aero. They do absolutely beautiful work and have been making interiors for RVs for many years. They sent me leather and carpet samples a while back. Picking color combinations and styles has been easier said than done! There are too many choices! I want a base color of grey for the interior since it will go with just about any exterior color I end up choosing. I wasn't sure what combo of greys to use, but then found a 10 year old photo by the company where they were showing their most recent interior kit for the RV14. The specifics are obviously different than the RV9, but I really like the two tone seats, the contrasting stitching, and the color of the carpet. The one thing I haven't decided on yet is whether to go with their Aviator seats or their Sportsman seats. The picture below is the Aviator. The Sportsman is more basic (a little blockier and no contrasting stitching possible) and the Aviator has a little bit of a better foam, is more contoured, has integrated seat backs (so it wouldn't use the seat backs I slaved over to build), etc. The Aviator is considerably more expensive of course! I'll be putting seat heaters in them, regardless which style I choose.
The company sent me some basic ideas for layouts of the seats and the side panels. The light grey portion in the lower front corner of the side panel is a carpeted cover for the gear towers.
