Getting the interior ready for leather. Got lucky, The primer I'm using actually matches the maroon leather interior I'm installing. I think it's gonna look super cool!





Getting the old paint off kinda sucks but I think it will be worth it!

Love the wood and the red interior! Cant wait to see more, keep 'em coming!!

jaudette wrote: So the wood flooring in this old bird was rotted out.....

Not sure one way or the other,
but I'd be kinda surprised if Luscombes originally came with wood floorboards.
After all, Luscombe's big advertising line was "no wood, no nails, no glue".

hotrod180 wrote:

jaudette wrote: So the wood flooring in this old bird was rotted out.....

Not sure one way or the other,
but I'd be kinda surprised if Luscombes originally came with wood floorboards.
After all, Luscombe's big advertising line was "no wood, no nails, no glue".

I'm not sure! I've looked at three others and they all had shitty torn up plywood. The wood it attaches to looks original to the airplane. Dunno.

Here is a pic of the old floorboards. There is barely anything left of them. There is enough to use them as a template. Going to start planing them down and fitting them today. A lot of work to get to here for such little thing. I think a normal person would have just used a similar plywood. Oh well, is what it is!

Well it goes slow, but I'm making progress. I have to cut and fit the piece that goes behind the rudder yet (tomorrow). A little more fit and finish!







I suck at wood. Looking forward to getting this part done!

Made some progress today on the flooring. My OCD with respect to avionics has been displaced to floor-boards. Oh well, having fun!



I weighed the old wood and carpet and it is 3.2lbs heavier than this wood. A little bonus!

Looks amazing!

I hate to see you cover up that beautiful grain. How about pouring an epoxy layer on it, or polycarbonate heel guards?

Nice work. Did you have access to a thickness planer, or you did it all with a hand held power planer?

Pinecone wrote:I hate to see you cover up that beautiful grain. How about pouring an epoxy layer on it, or polycarbonate heel guards?

Nice work. Did you have access to a thickness planer, or you did it all with a hand held power planer?

I'm going to put a couple more layers of epoxy on it. I planed it down to a 1/4 inch with a dewalt power planer. Polycarbonate isn't a bad idea. I'm going to polish these aluminum heel kicks to a mirror shine. There are some other chrome accents that tie it all together. We'll see how it turns out.

It’s so hard to keep the surfaces flat and parallel with a hand held tool. You have my respect! I’d have been forced to fib a thickness planer.

On a couple sets of cub floorboards I’ve made I used a light layer of fiberglass. It’s totally transparent when saturated with epoxy and adds a great deal of strength and durability. I also clear-coated with Imron to provide UV stability.

Halestorm wrote:On a couple sets of cub floorboards I’ve made I used a light layer of fiberglass. It’s totally transparent when saturated with epoxy and adds a great deal of strength and durability. I also clear-coated with Imron to provide UV stability.

HAHA! Funny you would say that! Todays project:



Final fit:



What do you all think?

I think you need to round out the marine theme by finding and installing a pair of floats. No cheating either. Silver lacquer is not a substitute for polish. They’ll need to be polished to match the airplane!

Pinecone wrote:I think you need to round out the marine theme by finding and installing a pair of floats. No cheating either. Silver lacquer is not a substitute for polish. They’ll need to be polished to match the airplane!

HAHA! I'd totally invest in silver lacquer!

The friend/aircraft maintenance engineer that looks after my 185 talks about the Luscombe T8F his dad had and flew back and forth across the country a few times. His dad’s day job was Harvards, Landcasters, then Argus, then Hercules. Sounded like a cool little airplane. It’s still registered as flying. I like that it was a tandem seater. The only two seat taildragger I’ve sat in comfortably is a Champ. Husky is too small, cub is too small. Chief, Taylorcraft, Luscombe, and 140 too small. Might a T8F fit?

Looks great!

Looks darn good. Nice job.

Pinecone wrote:The friend/aircraft maintenance engineer that looks after my 185 talks about the Luscombe T8F his dad had and flew back and forth across the country a few times. His dad’s day job was Harvards, Landcasters, then Argus, then Hercules. Sounded like a cool little airplane. It’s still registered as flying. I like that it was a tandem seater. The only two seat taildragger I’ve sat in comfortably is a Champ. Husky is too small, cub is too small. Chief, Taylorcraft, Luscombe, and 140 too small. Might a T8F fit?

You need to try a Husky with the heel pans, this drops your heels gown for added clearance for knees and bottom of instrument panel, it really works well, however at 5'9" tall I removed mine (airplane came with them) and put the original heel plates in.

Kurt

I’m 6’0” only, but tall torso, short legs. 230#. Fuselage is too narrow. Not enough head room. I sat in one once and couldn’t escape fast enough.