AIRPLANE INTERIOR
Planning for the interior begins long before you actually start putting in upholstery. Fiberglass upholstery panels and trim moldings are needed; and you need to make the so-called "vanity bulkhead" that goes in at the back of the cabin to hide the gear mechanism, fuel lines and various electrical items and wires.
MAKING PARTS
In my case, where I customized the strake cutouts
in the doors, I had to also make new upholstery panels for the doors.
Using part of the original panel provided, I shaped urethane foam around
the strake cutout, and across the top of the panel where I wanted to pick up a
bit of shoulder room. I then laid-up glass cloth over the parts of the old
panel and over the urethane mold.
The vanity bulkhead was a bit of a project in itself. I decided to use 1/4" foam, coated with epoxy slurry on both sides, and one ply of BID (glass cloth) on one side, to give a reasonble stong, but lightweight material. I then spent some time to shape it in a way to make maximum use of the space behind the rear seats. I came up with a design made up of three parts that povided a couple of shelves, with the middle section easily removeable for access to all the stuff the bulkhead was hiding.
I also
formed fiberglass panels for the sides of the front footwells (under and forward
from the instrument panel) to safely cover the wiring bundles and cables coming
from the panel to the wiring ducts, the tubing for the pitot-static plumbing,
and the rudder cable conduits. You'll see these upholstered and in place
below.
GETTING MATERIALS
Of course, once you are ready to actually start upholstering, you get to spend a lot of time at the upholstery shops and material outlets to choose colors and fabrics. Also, if there are going to be some items that are painted, some choice has to be made about that.
Fortunately, there was an upholstery outlet nearby (UFO) that had a good selection of automotive interior materials; fabrics, vinyls and flooring. With help from my interior decorator spouse, we chose a conservative scheme of warm colors acceptable to anyone. I had previously decided on using leather for the seats, and did a lot of shopping on the web to find the right color at the right price. A very complete color selection is available from Spinney-Beck leather, but their prices are atrocious. I found a color close enough, and at a more moderate price from Hirsch auto in New Jersey. It is their "Grand" leather line, and the color is 'Parchment'. I got two hides that were generous size (about 55 sq. ft.), and they were beautiful!
Having chosen the vinyl for the interior framework, I decided the easiest thing to do on the doors was to paint the frames, so I first set up my paint booth (plastic sheet around the inside the garage) and painted the door frames and some other interior parts.
PANELS AND BULKHEAD
I was taking the seats to a local auto upholstery
shop to have the leather installed, so I began with the panels and items
that I could do outside the plane on the workbench. The first was the door
panels. All the panels would be covered over a 1/4" fire resistant foam,
so the first thing was to glue the foam to the panels, and then apply the fabric
over that. Everything was glued with a spray-on contact cement (1081) that
I got from UFO. Because of the contour into the strake opening, the door
panels were a challenging place to begin, but I managed that and it built my
confidence.
The interior of the strake cutout area
was later done with leather.
The next thing was the vanity bulkhead. Since
one its secondary functions was to serve as a sound barrier, I installed
1/8" heavy duty sound barrier foam on the backs of the panels. I found the
best way to attache that was silicone caulking. I covered the shelf areas
with vinyl, and the rest with fabric over 1/4" foam. I
discovered that the contact cement would not adhere to the sound barrier as
I brought the fabric over the back, so I had to go back and glue that with
silicone. 
The glare shield was made from 1/4" rigid PVC foam which was then heated and bent into shape, and then stiffened with a ply of BID on both sides. It was then covered with 1/4" foam for padding, and covered with black vinyl.
FRAMES AND SIDE PANELS
Then it was time to work in the plane. For a guy my size, that can be a bit cramped. The first thing was to cover all the structural framing with the vinyl. The stock design includes only the frame up front edge of the doors and across the top (including the overhead switch panel), and the frames up the back side of the doors. I decided to add a frame across the top between the two door frames, across the tops of the doors, and from the mid cross frame back to the firewall. All of these are triax and BID glass over foam cores, and add considerable strength for little weight. Good protection if it ever ends up up-side-down.
I first made paper patterns of all the pieces, and then cut the vinyl. The vinyl has just enough stretch to form nicely over the framework.
The thing that required the care here was matching up the
edges where more than one piece was needed to cover the frame, and the
intersections off the pieces for each frame. No padding was used under the
vinyl on the frames.
For the small panels between the door, window and instrument panel I covered a piece of foam with the fabric and then glued it into place. I did the same thing on the inside of the strake cutouts, and left an open edge on the fabric to glue directly to the fiberglass on a edge that would be overlapped by another panel.
HEADLINER
The headliner panels were the most difficult
because of the fitting required, and then doing the overhead
installation. Gravity working against you can make things difficult.
The headliner is European perforated vinyl over 1/4" air-flight foam.
You can see in the photo the attach points for the rear seat shoulder harnesses. These are "Y" type harnesses to give a 4-point restrant for the back seat passengers.
KEEL AND FLOORING
The remaining big items were covering the keel, and putting in the flooring.
The keel is covered with vinyl over 1/4" foam, with the vinyl being one large
piece - a bit tricky to get into place. Of course the keel access covers
have to be upholstered as well. The flooring material was cut by
first making a paper pattern, and was then taken to the upholstery
shop for installation of the edge binding, and sewing in of the pilot side
heel pad.
TRIM AND DETAILS
The window moldings were covered with vinyl before being put in place with screws. The vinyl was cut as a one piece strip and then glued on with contact cement. The bottom of the strake cutouts in back were made by cutting a pattern from upholstery backing board that I got at the upholstery shop, padded with 1/4" foam and then covered with some of that same beautiful leather that was going on the seats. Note the custom windows in the strakes so the back seat passengers can have a way to look down. A leather covered panel the size of the window was made to cover the window when the space is used to store luggage or other items.
The door strake cutouts/armrests were also upholstered with leather over 1/4" foam, giving the pilot and co-pilot a comfortable arm rest. These strake extensions or one of my custom parts described on anothe link at this site.
One of the more time consuming small items was the boot for the contral stick. Before starting the upholstery, I had laid-up a fiberglass flange for around the hole in the keel. I covered the flange with vinyl. For making the boot I took careful measurements from each corner of the opening to the position of the stick at the opposite corner, and then from the middle of the sides to the stick positioned at the opposite side. This gave me the height of the 'cone' needed for the boot. I also measured the inner circumference of the boot flange. Using these dimensions, and allowing for a width under the flange I could draw a pattern on paper needed for the vinyl boot.
The final shape was slightly less than
a 180 degree segment of a circle, although the outside was not circular because
of the shape of the flange. It was then sewn part way up a seam at the
front, leaving it open far enough so it would fit over the stick grip.
With the stick grip switches all wired up, I didn't want to remove it to put the
boot in place. The top edge was turned in just a bit for a finished edge,
and it was secured to the stick with a wrap of SS safety wire. It looks
and works just fine.
I put in a leather covered armrest on the keel just behind the stick, which also serves as a hand hold to use when pulling to slide the seat forward. This was shaped from a piece of urethane foam, and then covered with 3 plies of BID before upholstering. It is padded and covered with leather.
SEATS
I ordered the seat foam from Chestnut Ridge, who makes foam for seats in the airliners. Other Velociy builders had ordered there before, and they had the drawings on file to make multi-density cushions the fit the seat pans. I also ordered additional foam for padding and bolsters.
I took the seats, foam and leather to a shop that specializes in re-doing interiors of European cars; especially Porsches, gave them a sketch of what I wanted, and let them apply their expertise. They did a fine job, with excellent workmanship, in spite of some misdirections along the way.
Photos below show the roomy reqr seats, front seats, and view of the cockpit. Note in the rear seat view the removable cover on the strake window. And note the masking on the outside of the windows. Now if I can just get the exterior painting done; it could actually get off to the airport.
