New member - Dash wood around guages

[gkb]

I am a new member. I have owned three e24s (currently have 2) but have always wanted an e9 and finally found a very nice, tight, well-sorted example. While it has relatively few needs I have a question. Most of the wood is in excellent condition. Is this veneer? Walnut? The only place that is a bit rough is the dash portion with the guages and it is not bad looking. Are there any photos of how to remove this? Is it a major headache? What is best finish for medium to low gloss? Urethane? Tung oil?

Many thanks.

 

[vraned]

The original wood is walnut veneer bonded to plywood. The cluster piece is usually the least damaged of the set (since it is the only piece not directly adjacent to a potentially leaking window seal.) Removing the cluster piece has been the subject of several previous posts. Removing the veneer from the cluster piece can be as simple as peeling or as difficult as sanding, depending on the condition. If the piece is in good shape, sanding is a good approach as you avoid the risk of damaging the base plywood. If the wood is in really good condition (no water damage) you may want to consider just sanding off the old varnish. I refinished using an alcohol based wood dye followed by Epoxy Urethane clearcoat. I don't recommend this. JoeWoodworker.com recommends sealing with a dewaxed shellac followed by urethane. You can check out my woodset progress at http://www.vranedom.com/vraneman/bmw/Wood/.

 

[Keshav]

Hi Vraned, the wood grain looks spectacular. Very nice! Would you be willing to reveal your source and what it would cost to get the wood to look like that?
thanks
Keshav ([email protected])

 

[vraned]

I did everything except the clear coat. The woodset was made from the remnant pieces from my 2.5 and 3.0. For those not in the trade, I found using a Foodsaver kitchen vacuum press indespensible to both the repair and veneering processes. I used Gorilla Glue for the repairs and Better Bond II for the veneering. The veneer is AAA Quilted Maple. The dye is vintage maple mixed at 120 drops/pint with denatured alcohol. Boyd Fechner applied a top coat consisting of 5 coats of block sanded PPG DBU clearcoat. Boyd is a San Jose auto restorer who specializes in Coupes. He was recommended to me by Carl Nelson. I have no affiliation with either of them, other than giving them most of my discretionary, and some of my undiscretionary, income.

 

[racerxx]

Beautiful Finish

Man! That looks good, very nice. I'm going to redo my interior in red and I think that would look absolutely fabulous along with it.

Do you have any interior shot of your coupe with the finished wood work?

John Raho
Westport, Connecticut

 

[vraned]

That is the most recent stuff. I update the webfiles as I go, usually every weekend, so keep checking the website www.vranedom.com/vraneman/bmw. At some point in the distant future a presentable webpage will be organized around these files, probably when I no longer need a day job.