F-19 Headliner

[Tom Eggert]

Now that the F-19 plastic headliners are 30 plus years old and showing their age, are there any replacements available? If not, what path are people going down to replace the old cracked headliner - is good old fashion scratch fabrication the only option?

[Mark Julicher]

Re: F-19 Headliner

I have a friend in the plastic vacu-forming business and I'm thinking about giving the aft piece of my F-19 headliner to him to see what he can do with it. Just have not done it yet because it is a $200 set up cost and there are too many other demands on the $ just now.

[Forrest Barber]

Re: F-19 Headliner

That was Royalite and the forms are down in Texas of course.

[Tom Eggert]

Re: F-19 Headliner

I'm wondering if this is something to try to tackle again. How many of you F19 drivers need or want a new headliner? Mark, if your contact is still interested, maybe we could get a batch made.

[Mark Julicher]

Re: F-19 Headliner

Tom,
If there is enough interest we probably can do it. It costs $250 per mold as a set up fee and then it is fairly inexpensive to pull vacuum plastic parts. We need a forward and aft headliner. Alternatively, I'm contemplating doing just an aft piece and putting a skylight in the forward location.

Let's see who else is interested and we will go from there.

[lotsofpony]

Re: F-19 Headliner

Tom
3579T I would be interested in a complete headliner and any information on skylights and what is available
not to sure on the skylight it would be nice so just let me know
Dan Wilke

[ak150crate]

Re: F-19 Headliner

I am most definitely interested in the aft headliner. I do not need the forward piece as I have a skylight. Hope we can get this going.

Matt

[lotsofpony]

Re: F-19 Headliner

Hi do you have pics of your skylight?
I have a f-19
Dan

[ak150crate]

Re: F-19 Headliner

Dan
I don't have any pics of it, but i think i have the paperwork and all the drawings that i can see if i can get scanned and send to you this week. I can try to get some pictures too, but I think it is all covered in a fair amount of ice at the moment but I'll see what I can do.
Matt

[Mark Julicher]

Re: F-19 Headliner

OK Tribe,
I'm going to stick my neck out a little here. I contracted with a professional plastics shop to vacu-form some new AFT headliners for the F-19. They will make a MDF vacu-form that will be good for about a dozen headliners. After that it may or may not hold its quality - don't know, but an investment quality mold will be prohibitively expensive for a run of less than 100 units and MDF is the standard for short run products. As it is, there will be 20 man hours in this mold and several CNC machine hours. To keep costs down, I will hand sand the mold myself, but we are still talking about the neighborhood of a kilobuck.

The way this works is that my old headliner is being digitized in 3 dimensions. Next, 3/4 inch MDF is epoxied into a large block and a CNC router will carve the block of MDF into a mold. An air box is made onto which the mold is mounted and placed in a vacuum machine. Finally, a heated plastic sheet is vacuumed onto the mold.

I expect that the plastic will be the same or slightly thicker than the 1/16 inch original. I can't control the color of the plastic because it depends on what the big company is running that week - but paint will cure any color problem. The plastic will be more durable than original just because plastic technology is a little more advanced than it was in 1977.

I hope these turn out OK and that a few tribesmen want them also, or I will have to find and restore another 11 F-19s all by myself.

[Tom Eggert]

Re: F-19 Headliner

Count me in. Any idea on cost per headliner?

[Tom T]

Re: F-19 Headliner

Not sure of what all it fits, but there is one advertised on barnstormers with bows for tcraft.

[barnstmr]

Re: F-19 Headliner

Mark,
I saw your post and was curious to know what the materials requirement is in the Regs. Since the F19 has a CAR 3 certification basis, here is what I found in CAR 3

§ 3.388 Fire precautions—
(a) Cabin interiors. Only materials which are flash resistant shall be used. In compartments where smoking is to be permitted, the wall and ceiling linings, the covering of all upholstering, floors, and furnishings shall be flame-resistant. Such compartments shall be equipped with an adequate number of self contained ash trays. All other compartments shall be placarded against smoking.

So I looked up the CAR 3 definitions of flame & flash resistant...

§ 3.1 Definitions. As used in this part terms are defined as follows:
(g)(3) Flame-resistant. Flame-resistant material means material which will not support combustion to the point of propagating, beyond safe limits, a flame after the removal of the ignition source.
(g)(4) Flash-resistant. Flash-resistant material means material which will not burn violently when ignited.

This is way more lenient than I expected. Here is what the current-day 14 CFR Part 23 says...

§ 23.853 Passenger and crew compartment interiors.
For each compartment to be used by the crew or passengers:
(a) The materials must be at least flame-resistant;
(f) Airplane materials located on the cabin side of the firewall must be self-extinguishing or be located at such a distance from the firewall, or otherwise protected, so that ignition will not occur if the firewall is subjected to a flame temperature of not less than 2,000 degrees F for 15 minutes. For self-extinguishing materials (except electrical wire and cable insulation and small parts that the Administrator finds would not contribute significantly to the propagation of a fire), a vertifical self-extinguishing test must be conducted in accordance with appendix F of this part or an equivalent method approved by the Administrator. The average burn length of the material may not exceed 6 inches and the average flame time after removal of the flame source may not exceed 15 seconds. Drippings from the material test specimen may not continue to flame for more than an average of 3 seconds after falling.
[Amdt. 23–14, 23 FR 31822, Nov. 19, 1973, as amended by Amdt. 23–23, 43 FR 50593, Oct. 30, 1978; Amdt. 23–25, 45 FR 7755, Feb. 4, 1980; Amdt. 23–34, 52 FR 1831, Jan. 15, 1987]

And here is the 14 CFR Part 1 definition of "flame resistant".

§ 1.1 General definitions. Flame resistant means not susceptible to combustion to the point of propagating a flame, beyond safe limits, after the ignition source is removed.

Just something to ponder for those out there considering interiors.

[Mark Julicher]

Re: F-19 Headliner

It looks like the cost per will be about $145. Not cheap I know. And that is with me doing some of the hand labor. If enough folks want one, maybe I can get a price break, but today I spent $1000 to have the mold produced.

[Forrest Barber]

Re: F-19 Headliner

They will be wanted in the future. Original was Royalite. I sanded on the form back then. How about the small pieces from the front part to around the diagonal tubes. My two pieces, front and rear are good ...