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Bought last week. This will be fixed, along with dash replacement. Bought last week. This will be fixed, along with dash replacement.
I redid mine. There are reusable sandpaper pads typically used for a sander that are mesh-like. These worked very well to get off the clear. I highly recommend using General Finishes brand clear. Mini wax was garbage in comparison. The guy at the Rockler wood supplies store also recommended an option that is typically used in boat application that is also UV resistant, if you want that type of thing.
Looks excellent now. I’ll have to snap some photos of it all finished.
You can see the 'before' pictures in the earlier post to which I am replying.
I stripped and stained the steering wheel by wrapping all sensitive surfaces in aluminum foil (everything you don't want stripped or damaged) and stripping it with a methylene-chloride-based paste stripper.
It took 9 stripping sessions over 4 days. After about 5 sessions, I found that a stripping session of about 20 minutes is the right length, (I had started with hour long sessions) so
it could be done in one day using 20 minute sessions. Be sure to wipe on the stripper and cover with foil for the 20 minutes.
The stain was matched by taking a wood sample from the car to HomeDepot/Lowe's and matching it to mounted samples. It took 5 applications to get to the shade I wanted.
Photos show the final wheel with other wood panels in the photo. Note that the gray wheel color is from the tint on the windshield.
In the final photos, stained cracks still show in the top left of the wheel. I think these are actually in the wood below the cracked urethane. Alternately,
there was still a little urethane left and I stopped stripping one or two sessions too early.
I plan on doing this today, I want to not only make the wheel smooth to the touch but also somehow remove the cracks. By using thin CA glue on the crack, prior to sanding and applying the poly then the cracks can possibly be removed. The CA glue is thin enough that the capillary effect of applying it on top of the crack would draw it in. The repair is similar to the thin adhesive which is used to repair cracks in windshields.
11-10-21, 03:56 PM
Suggestion
