Jerome wrote,
>The 2-piece plastic cowl on my steering column has become brown-ish and
>mottled. I presume it used to be black. Has anyone re-coated or buffed
>these to make them black again?
The original material (on the early cars at least) was Bakelite, which
was
always brittle, and becomes moreso with time. Mine was missing some
pieces from the corners due to years of abuse and was terribly oxidised
and pitted. I tried to get a better replacement, but found that these
were
hens teeth.
Ultimately, I decided to put my best effort into a restoration.
I used polyester resin and a small amount of bondo mixed, using
the resin's catalist (MEKP). The bondo maked the resin softer and
easier to deal with after it all dries. I filled the larger pits with
the
filler mix, and made sort of a mold around the edges of the cowling
to recreat the lost areas. I used jewelers files and other fine tools
to file out the details where I used the filler.
I then used automotive spot putty to fill the remainder of the pits
let is set for a few days (to fully degas the putty), then sanded
it all fine with 600 grit wet or dry.
I shot it all with black primer, sanded again with 600, then wiped
it down with a pre-paint grease removal fliud.
I shot the outside with flat black laquer.
Somehow the bakelite holds some oil or wax inside, because
I got some minor fisheyes.
After it all dried, I wet sanded out the fisheyes, and wiped it again
with the degreaser.
I shot it again with flat black laquer, then shot it with about 20 coats
of clearcoat laquer.
After the clearcoat dried, I rubbed it out with compound till it looked
like a mirror.
It was a lot of work, but it really looks good, and goes to show that
you can pollish a turd.
Sorry so windy.
Jarrid Gross
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 10:07:09 CDT