All wood cabin interior

Can't believe it's been two weeks already since my last post.  I got all my cabin interior panels built and have started on the finishing process.  Here's the details in photos and text.

Since I completed the rear cabin woody panels, I decided to continue them forward just like Dave Miller did on his Stinson rebuild where he documented and published drawings.  Unfortunately, Dave did not have drawings and measurements for the door panels, and I contacted him about it, but he is out of the country until April and I couldn't wait any longer.  With my confidence high on the results of the rear cabin panels I started on the co-pilot (right) side and moved forward.

Here is the passenger door panel cut to fit and the trim pieces cut and clamped. 

 

This photo shows that I finished the edges of the door panel the same as the edges of the rear cabin walls by wrapping the trim around the edge of the panel so it wouldn't be exposed and have a finished look.  This photo also shows that I relieved the backside of the plywood in several areas because of screws and such so that the plywood would be as flat as possible on the inside curve of the door.  I used the door itself as a clamp mold so that when the glue dried, the door panel would be curved and hold it's shape.

Here's the door panel clamped off for the night.  I used Gorilla wood glue this time instead so that I could wipe off with a damp rag the excess that squeezed out during clamping.  It seemed to work fine.  Before the glue up of this panel, I flipped it and traced it out with pencil on another piece of mahogany plywood for the pilot side door panel.

 

Here's the door panel all dried up and clamped in the door and mounted on the plane to see how the top trim lines up with the trim line from the rear cabin side wall.  Looks good I think.  The door handle will go right about in the center of the upper trim piece and the plywood above that will be covered by a piece of vinyl trim seen lying on the cabin floor carpet in the bottom of the photo.  These panels will look really different with the stain.

I laid the completed panel on the flat bench to show that it truly did dry curved in box X and Y directions to follow the shape of the door.

I also worked on the door panel sample and add a new coat of varnish each day and sanding in-between.  Hard to tell in the photo, but the grain is filling in nicely where I did the paste stain while the unstained right panel still has lots of low spots (?) where the varnish is trying to fill in the wood grain.   There is a slight color difference between the center and left panels that I did stain because I wiped the center panel before varnishing with a tack cloth damped with thinner that removed some of the stain.  I will not do that when I do the real panels.  I am glad I made this sample/practice panel to learn the limits of the staining finishing process.

Before I could tackle the pilot side door, I had to take it apart first.  Here's the pilot door handle and the old interior panel on the door.  The escutcheon around the door handle is kind of rusty and I'll have to see if we can get a newer one eventually and I'll polish up the handles like I did on the co-pilot side.  Dave Miller who designed and posted the how-to on the cabin interior panels who said he had a friend do a 108-1 like ours and the door handles and locks had to be specially relieved.  I will eventually experiment on the test panel I made to how it/if it will work.

Here's the side panel, door panel, and kick panel all in place.  I like the look and this will work and look really good on our airplane when it's all done.

Here's a close-up of the  joint between the kick panel and the door hinge side.  You can see that I wrapped the light-colored trim around the plywood panels.

Satisfied with my test panel finishing so far, I decided to start taping off a couple of panels.  The green tape is frog tape that comes in it's own plastic storage container to prevent it from humidity exposure.  Apparently, the tape absorbs moisture which then helps it make a cleaner line on the item you are painting.  Normally, this happens when using latex based paint, but since we're using oil and solvent based stains and finishes, I wiped a damp rag around each panel and trim taped are so that it would seal before I started staining.

Here's a panel with the first coat of the stain paste filler on it.  I need to wipe off the excess paste so the grain is exposed.  Not bothering to stain the lower part of the panel because it will be covered by carpeting there.

 

Here I'm putting on the second coat of stain paste filler the next day after reading as much as I can about this product and how stain paste filler videos on Youtube.  You can see that the left panel still needs more wiping.  At the top left of the photo is an old plastic credit card as a squeegee which I squeegee 90 degrees to the grain right after I apply the product, then a paper cup and stir stick and application rag, some red rags, flat razor blade cutter (to cut rags into smaller pieces), the thinner from Petit for the stain paste filler and the Captain's Varnish, a burlap piece to scrape off excess paste filler and work it into the grain more, putty knife for hard to get corners, and my right-hand glove I had to take off to get my iPhone out to take a photo.

 

Here is one of the panels 24 hours after the second coat.  Most of the mahogany grain is now filled and will be easier to get a smoother, mirror like, finish with the varnish.  I really like the color contrast of the trim wood and the red stained mahogany.  This will get more golden colored with the application of the varnish.

 Close up of the poplar trim and the mahogany.  Pretty nice clean line from the masking.

 The frog tape worked great but there was a couple of areas the stain leaked onto the trim wood.  I will need to see if I can bleach this out or sand it down to diminish it.  This is the worst stain leak from the my masking.

 So far it looks pretty spectacular.  I'm waiting for a badger hair brush I ordered that will make the varnish process better and get the bubbles out of the varnish when I apply it.  I can put the first coats of varnish down tomorrow with foam brushes that I purchased for this project.  Note the old Terra portable aircraft radio on the bench I got with the project.  I have it plugged in and listen to it in the background.  I have it tuned to Palo Alto (PAO) tower frequency and hear all the activity which is about 1 mile from here.  At the same time I can hear many planes fly overhead as they depart or enter the pattern over Palo Alto.