Kim,
I can only tell you how I did mine, it's been on the car for 9 years now and
looks as it did when I put it on.
I won't go into all the minor details, but will give you an overview how I
did it.
My wheel was in bad shape, it was broken in 8 places and pieces of wood (and
black inlay) missing.
I very carefully removed all the wood from the wheel top half and bottom
half, I used a 3/8 dia. Ball router bit to carefully grind out all of the
old "glue" from the inside of the wood where it was "glued" to the steel
wheel rim. These pieces are very small and delicate especially the top piece
with the inlay in it. One thing that was a problem was how to get the old
inlay out of the grove. If you try to pull it out it will start to pull the
wood that is glued next to it out and make a big mess. I used a heat gun and
carfully heated the area and it came out very easy leaving a perfect 3/16
square grove.
I used Titebond III glue to glue it all back together. I remember it was the
fact that Titebond III was waterproof that I chose it, there are many glues
on the market that will work I'm sure.
After getting it back together (letting it dry for several weeks) and
filling all of the imperfections with wood filler and using a small amount
of stain to help camouflage the line between real wood and the wood filler,
now I had this 3/16 inch grove all around that I didn't have a clue where I
could find a 3/16 inch piece of anything that would work.
I was flying along one day (I'm a retired airline pilot) and came up with
this idea; I sprayed the wheel with high solids clear (that I used on the
car) to "seal" the wood, then leveled the wheel and mixed some black paint
(the paint I used on the car, Glasurit 21) put it in a small hypodermic
stringe and carefully "shot" it into the grove, but not filling it. After
this had cured I started to spray on the clear then sanding between coats
until the grove started to "fill up" It took about 8 or 9 coats, but now I
have a perfectly looking black "inlayed" line in my steering wheel.
Well, this is how I did it 10 years ago, there other ways I'm sure.
Good luck
Jerry Christopherson
9473187
TAC insp. #58
-----Original Message-----
From: tigers-bounces@autox.team.net [mailto:tigers-bounces@autox.team.net]
On Behalf Of Fabbro
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 12:05 AM
To: tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: [Tigers] Steering Wheel Restoration
Hi All
I am working on a wood steering wheel. What material is used to
replace the black insert section of the steering wheel? Also were can
this strip of material be purchased?
Thanks in advance.
Kim
Tigers@autox.team.net
http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/tigers
http://www.team.net/archive
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