Hi
Has anyone had any experience of having the wooden mk1 steering wheel refurbished? Or for that matter doing it themselves?
I have a Eunos V Spec and the wheel lacquer is in places starting to crumble though age and wear.
I assume having removed it from the car it a question of sanding, repainting the black stripe, polish and revarnish or lacquer
Any thoughts?
Steve
Have a read of:
Best to set expectations. ie. you won’t restore it to like new, but merely improve it. Even the lacquer can change the colour. It seems marine varnish might give the best colour.
Alternatively buying a new one might be more expensive, but less painful.
Hi Steve.
It is quite easy to sand wood down of most any sort if you are not in a rush to get it finished. It takes time and care, for instance Instead of using a coarse grade of glasspaper, use wet and dry paper of P240 grit to remove all the varnish, and then higher grades of wet and dry paper until you can not see any scratches on the wood .
Do not use water when rubbing the varnish off even when you are smoothing the wood down.
The trick in getting a good finish is when using the P240 grit thro P320, P400 and P500 you must sand it down along the grain, never across the grain or you will scratch it, which will take you even longer to get rid of it. When you are happy with the finish give the wood a single coat of Shellac Sander Sealer and let it dry overnight.
When you pick it up next morning to stain it you will get a bit of a shock as it will feel a little rough because the Sander Sealer has set the wood fibres. What you need to do next is to sand it down with P800 to get the nice smooth finish back again.
You are now ready to stain it. I would try the stain out on a piece wood that is similar to the wheel wood or something that looks like it.
When the stain has dried, after about three hours, give it one more coat of Sander Sealer and when it is dry rub it down smooth again with P800 very lightly. Then you are ready to put the final coats on.
If I was doing it I would get a spray can of the varnish that you want to use ie High Gloss or Matt finish.
There are some good quality stains that have been mixed with varnish on the Internet but you will need a very soft, 25mm light yellow coloured, with fine nylon “bristles” to put this type of stain on.
If in doubt try doing it all on a sample piece of hardwood that you have planed up first and then sanded.
Hi Polly
Thanks very much for your note about my Mk1 Nardi wheel.
I have just started to do and am following your instructions
Got the horn push out
Got the steering wheel out of the car and into a woodworkers vice
The wheel is only damaged on the 10 o’clock to 3 o’clock quadrant so I have masked off the rest of it hoping that my refurb will match the existing which is still very good.
Rubbed down with 240 wet n dry then 400 then applied the sander sealer. Resanded with P800 and applied the coat of sander sealer again. All is looking very good so far.
Then i noticed your next step of applying spray varnish
I had assumed that the wheel finish was lacquer and I have both workshop spray lacquer and a small tin of brushing lacquer. I also have a tin of clear brush on varnish. But no spray varnish!
My question then before I finish the wheel is lacquer or varnish. Varnish will I think give a thicker coating.
I’ve put this question out to the wider community so don’t feel affronted
Many thank
Steve