Wood panels? What did you do?

[MrJD]

So I am getting close to being able to put my interior back in. I have seen a few of you that coated your interior wood to get a high gloss finish. I think this is the best method, but I've not been having luck getting ANYTHING to stick to the wood/lamination. What did you do to get your interior wood looking great?

[spidernut]

If you have the real wood you'll have no problems. The laminate is essentially Formica. You can sand it lightly and get lacquer to stick to it but I'd suspect it would peel eventually. When I had my solid walnut dash, I used high gloss Spar Urethane.

[brackie1]

I would like to add my 2 cents. First, solid wood is great, but requires a good bit of work and I am a woodworker. First is making the template can be intimidating. Part of the problem is that the post on the rheostats are pretty short so that area needs to be somewhat thin. I decided to take my old dash and use real wood veneer. There is a multitude of veeners to choose from and can be stained and finished just as thicker wood. The key is to stain(if you want) and finish before gluing it to the old dash. Be sure to use "contact cement". If you want to go this route, I will be glad to walk you through it on PM's or email. I am sure others will have different opinions, but it took me three attempts to decide what would work best. The rheostats are tricky.

[fredguaz]

Brackie,
How thick are the veneers and does it interfere with fitment of the dash panel ??
And will contact cememt work over the 'formica' dash panel ??

[georgeramos]

They make peel and stick veneers that have very strong adhesives. If you have laminate you should sand it so it has "tooth" and the veneer will stick to it. Applying veneer with contact cement is do-able but tricky. this is slightly easier for the novice woodworker.

i made solid panels and just planed the center pieces down to the original thickness. So far its worked fine. i used Cherry because i didnt want to re-make the gauge section as it was in very nice shape and i didnt want to remove all the gauges until I have to. eventually I want to use a more interesting wood and re-do the whole thing.

It is definitely a fun and relatively easy project which will bring you a lot of satisfaction.

im still working on a real wood steering wheel! maybe some day it will be reality.

Best of luck

[MrJD]

Yea... I thought about doing my own wood wheel, seemed like a huge pain. So, I just leather wrapped it, lol. I have tried scuffing and coating some wood panels from my car... Stuff peels right off. Anyone have some pictures?

[spider2081]

I think Denise and maybe some of the vendors sell finished and unfinished replacement panels.

[btoran]

I just finished a custom, two piece dash made from Mahogany (I'll post pictures this weekend). My goal was to get it to match my shiny, Mahogany steering wheel, which it does. Cutting, sanding, and staining the wood was fairly easy and made easier because a generous forum member sent a paper template. Finishing the wood, though, was tough. I tried having an auto shop "clear" it (ie spray clear coat on it), but the stain kept leaching through. Finally, I sanded it back to bare wood, restained it, and then applied 12 coats of Epifanes Marine Varnish. The particular varnish I used did not require sanding between coats (a miracle these days!), but about every other coat I found some dust specks on the dash and became very familiar with 800 grit sand paper as I sanded each one off individually. Make sure that whatever you use to finish the wood with has UV protection in it as our dashes generally see lots of sunlight.

[brackie1]

Hey Fred, veeners are very thin usually 2 to 3/32". You can can find a good variety at Klingspor woodworking in Winston Salem where I live or Charlotte. Applying veeners over top of old dash is easy. Just apply a piece larger than what you are covering. Trim with a utility knife and sand edges with 150 grit sand paper wrapped around a block of wood. Kligspor has some beautiful patterns. I am actually thinking of re-doing mine with curly maple stained to match my steering wheel.

Gene
Winston Salem

[baltobernie]

I would like to add my 2 cents. First, solid wood is great, but requires a good bit of work and I am a woodworker.

Could he veneer with Heat Activated glue on the OE panels? I did some (plywood) loudspeakers covered in this fashion. Tried a few scrap pieces first, and once that stuff sets ... it's forever. The procedure is more forgiving than contact cement, but I don't know how the laminate would stand up to the household iron.

[DanD]

Laminate will hold up to moderate heat quite well, but if you heat it long enough, it will start to separate from the backing. You would most likely fry the veneer before you peel the laminate.

[brackie1]

You can not use heat activated adhesive when dealing with wood veneer. The best thing is two coats of contact cement on each surface. Let each one dry to touch before applying second coat. After 2nd coat is dry put them together and apply pressure. A "J" roller works great for this application. This is the way veeners have been applied for centuries. 18th century furniture in many case had veeners. As long as you try to keep the dash out of prolonged sun, ie when parked use sun shades you should have know problems.

[baltobernie]

http://www.veneersupplies.com/products/ ... -Glue.html

[aj81spider]

I built a set out of birch plywood (for stability) and covered that with veneer. You can route the birch plywood using the laminate dash as a template for the birch. That will also let you go back to the original if Spiders reach six figures and you want to go back to the factory original dash to capture the big payday .

With the birch plywood you can glue the veneer on with Titebond II. Wax paper over the veneer, another piece of plywood and some C-clamps and it will bond very nicely. Then you can finish it with the finish of your choice. I used marine grade spar varnish so it would be UV resistant and moisture resistant.

[RRoller123]

You can sand the original dash pieces (use 150 or such) and veneer them with Titebond 2, and a custom plywood clamping jig. Works great! Cover the entire piece of base with glue, out to every edge, with no exceptions, no voids, and of uniform thickness. Make a simple semi-custom fixture (3/4 plywood) to hold the pieces, and clamp firmly overnight. Use a LOT of clamps and wax paper. Then trim with a razor knife to within about 1/8" of an edge, and then carefully sand the rest of the way. "Chipping is the enemy of veneer". Finish with your choice, I used spar varnish and Boston Polish, veneer is Madrone Burl from veneersupplies.com.