How to Simulate Wood Panels by Dave Darr

We used a process called "Dry Brushing". This is very easy to do. Our fuselage is molded in a dark color we decided on Minwax Gel stain Aged Oak. The first step was to sand the fuselage with 600 wet sandpaper. Next step was to apply 1/2" 3M green tape on our centerline. Then we started to mark where the vertical lines would look compared to the original. Just touch your brush in the gel stain and with a piece of paper or cardboard brush it until most of the stain has been removed. Now start brushing the area you want stained. Always brush into the tape. This will create 1/2 of the joint.

Let the stain have about an hour between panels. Minwax Gel is a lacquer base, this means applying it to soon will melt the previously stained area. If you get too much stain on an area you can just clean your brush with lacquer thinner and with it just moist you can dry brush until you achieve the depth you are looking for.

We also noticed that the stain we applied today did not melt the stain applied yesterday. This is great news. We also found we can overlap the masking tape and it will not pull the stain from the fuselage. I'm guessing the wet sanding allowed the gel to grab the fiberglass. Minwax has a urethane satin clear coat that we will apply after we finish.











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