Rebuilding the Cabin Interior.

We rebuilt all the woodwork in the aircraft with the exception of the rear cabin floor which on the Station Wagon model is a two-piece hardwood ply with balsa core. We were able to use all the original pieces as templates.

We've always loved the look of the mahogany and basswood interior on the station wagon model so decided to extend the finish to the doors and fwd cabin. We took the liberty of using locally available poplar instead of basswood for the trim. We found the finished product, practically indistinguishable from the original.

All woodwork was coated with minimum 3 coats of uv resistant spar varnish.

Here you'll get an idea of how we carried the wood trim forward.

We installed a uv resistant-short strand-lightweight carpet throughout. The carpet tends to take a real beating when flying on floats... lots of wet shoes and beach sand tracked in.

The only interior part we didn't make was the headliner. I've stitched together two in the past and thought it worth the price.

Interior almost complete. Only a few small pieces left to install. A lot of pride goes with making your own interior. One point of interest, the wood door panel was slightly lighter than the original and it helped stiffen the door structure. There is a slight curve to the door so we warped the panels prior to applying the poplar trim. Once the trim is secured the panel holds it's shape.

Looks and smells like new. The girls have always complained about the odor... a combination of mogas, must, and god knows what. No more excuses for not flying with dad.

Nothing fancy about the gray interior. It was however, one of the few colours that would go with our AN yellow exterior.

Of course no interior rebuild would be complete without a new baggage compartment. New mahogany panels and I stitched up new snap-in cotton walls.

images/interior_clips.gif

This is a copy of my notes showing the location of floor, wall clips and wooden braces. I don't believe a source for the original spring steel clips has been found; however, I understand some owners have used Bowden clamps with success.

images/rear_panel.gif

I've had several requests for a pattern of our interior walls. Here's the dimension of our rear panel.

images/side_panel.gif

The side panels dimensions shown here were much more difficult to draft up. I hope there self explanatory. If you use these patterns, please let me know how you make out and I'll include your comments here.

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Last modified: March 22, 2004