It's been 1/2 year since folks here gave me advice on making the walls of the elevator. That advice was to make mortises of 3/8" (instead of 1/4"). So my first step was to make the mortiser published by Woodsmith. I liked its ability to put mortises not only on the edge of a piece, but also the ends of long ones. (That ability wasn't needed for this project).
The wall sides use the same flat panel dimensions, but one side is narrower than the other to house the 'scissor gate'. That narrower side also has the control panel and emergency phone box, so I needed something on the opposite side to match its dimensions. A huge flat panel seemed uninspired, so I went to the CNC to make these two. The far panel is the Nittany Lion, and the near side is the symbol for an Air Force doctor (my other life).
Assembling all those mortises and keeping it square before the glue sets was a concern. I used Titebond II Extend Wood Glue and tackled this in stages. To orient the following, think of the walls as two big center panels with arrays of 2x2 'panes' above and below. Everything was squared and clamped with the entire wall 'dry fit' around any part being glued. (Glue is only at rail/stile joints, the panels 'float'). At the end I was 1/16" out of square (measured corner to corner) on a 96" x 60" wall. The first stage was each of the 2x2 'panes', which needed just two glue joints for each. The second stage glued the horizontal rail beneath the top array and the horizontal rail within the array to the center stile. Third stage was to do the same with the center panels in place as I glued the wide horizontal rail and the bottom array to the center stile. Fourth was the two outer stiles and last was the top and bottom rails. Those required 100" pipe clamps, so not much else was done in the shop for some time.
The panels and sides are quarter-sawn white oak. The stain is General Finishes "Prairie Wheat" under their water-based clear polyurethane.
I've wondered whether the elevator company (whose cabs are very plain) would have other customers who want panels like these. The trouble is, I live in Cleveland and my equipment balks at symbols for Ohio State.