Wood Veneer Rehab

acat2002

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WInter project(s) are underway and while I wait for new carpet and certain electrical components to be installed, I've decided to tackle the veneer.

The four veneers in the drivers & passenger side are fairly easy to remove and aside from poorly applied veneer from PO, they were in relatively decent shape. I decided to slowly and tediously remove the existing veneer with a very sharp 1/2" wood chisel. A good portion came off without a fight as the old glue had degraded considerably. With patience and slow/steady hand, even the well adhered sections of veneer gave way eventually.
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After sanding the plywood substrate, I turned my attention to the rear of the wood, which had splintered and missing mounting blocks. Fabricated new hardwood mounting blocks (hardwood to eliminate the splitting). Of all the available adhesives, expoxies and glues avaiable, I chose 3M Marine Adhesive Sealant available at West Marine because its resistance to vibration. This product is expensive and takes 7 days to fully cure, but will never crack because is dries to a plastic/rubber consistency. This will be the most bullet-proof part of the entire car - I'm certain!

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I'm also looking at different types of wood finishes, but will probably use Cabot's Australian Timber Oil (Honey Teak) with two coats of satin polyurethane. Any thoughts on types of stain/poly?

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I'll post more pictures when the woods are finished and installed. [/url]
 

ElRey

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Nice work!
I have taken on the same project while my coupe is off getting stripped & painted. Did you use a vacuum bag while bonding the veneer? Please post a follow up after you've applied stain & finish.
Regards,
ElRey
 

bela22

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Oh, I can see that you got the samples from cabrio.de !

Excellent work !
 

acat2002

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Elray- wish I had a vacuum bag! looked into obtaining one, but didn't want to spend $500 for a one-time project. Clearly a vacuum bag is the way to go with veneers. Instead, I cut 3" strips of stryrofoam (you could probably use some high-density foams as well) and before I applied the veneer I pressed the wood substrate into the foam with a small section of 2x4 on top of the "sandwich". THis effectively created a reverse impression of the face of the wood with the same curvature etc. Then, when the actual veneer is glued and pressed, there will be equal pressure on the entire surface area. Obviously, this would not work on any compound curves, but worked well on the four relatively straight wood pieces. It was tricky to get right, but I'm very satisfied with the results. No air pockets and no "bleed-through" of the glue.

Bela22 - yes, KHM sent some carpet samples. I know that I won't do any velour, but beyond that I have not settled on a carpet. BTW, the sample on the far right is indoor-outdoor carpet from Cheapo-Depot! maybe this is a good alternative for the trunk or somebody on a real budget. Regardless, I will probably order from KHM later this month as they seem like real professionals who know coupes.

I'll post some pictures of the finished veneer later next week.

BTW - there is at least one person on this board making new side veneers out of solid mahogany, so perhaps there is a market for him is he could make several in bulk. Once a template/pattern has been created and the correct shaping of the curve has been mastered, I'm sure solid hardwood side woods would be fantastic. I enjoyed rehabbing mine, but it is definately not for everyone. It would probably take me half the time if I were to do it again, but even then, it would still be 15+ hours. So if anyone out there is doing a cost/benefit analysis of rehabbing veneer, strongly consider buying a rehabbed set if your time is valuable.
 

steve in reno

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Acat
I did my wood trim last year.
I put in jewelbox carpathian elm burl. No stain, as it was dark enough and matches my Nardi wheel nearly perfect.
I used spring clips and wood blocks to do even the compound curves of the dash cluster. Doors can be two pieces of block, top and bottom for the bend, but dash and cluster will require many small blocks.
You are correct it is serious work. The doors are the easiest, and the dash is not too hard. But the gauge cluster is harder and will always be in your face. So it has to come out great.
The compound curves of the cluster is easiest if you do a straight cut at the apex of the curve and trim back as necessary for the bend. Much of the curve will be hidden where the compound bend occurs.
I would suggest that you try your wood with just your satin top coat before you stain it. Any stain color will darken it heavily.
Be sure to let pieces dry many times longer than manufacturer states.
Woodcrafters has a vac bag that will work, long and wide enough, for $50.

Just my $.02

steve
 

acat2002

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Steve, I think $50 is for the bag only. THe pump system is what costs the $$$. Though I agree, a vac bag would probably be far easier.

The door trim was easy compared to the dash! The dash board looked good and solid until I put a wrench to a few of the bracket bolts. The two ends disintegrated, as somebody on this board once said "like a pile of dried leaves". Strange that there was no rust along the union of the A-Pillar and the dash area because the wood was completely dry-rotted. I have a feeling that because the design of the flat dash-pad area any spilled liquid would 'puddle' in the corners with very little opportunity to dry out. Fabricating and grafting new end pieces was agonizing and added many many hours. However, thanks to copious amounts of 2-part marine epoxy you could now use the dash board for a surf board or canoe without fear of cracking, splitting of warping (should the car ever get wet :lol: ).

Steve is also correct in stating that the gauge cluster was among the most difficult part (aside from fabricating the new grill cover). The sharp corners are difficult to work with (even after steaming the veneer).

There was a lot more fabrication and repair than I had anticipated, but I'm very satisfied with the results.

I realize that the factory-correct wood color is a darker walnut, but I think the honey teak color I've used works well with the Fjord exterior, blue leather and lighter color Nardi wheel in my car. Burled walnut is nice (almost too nice), and I didn't want the wood to be the focus of the interior.

As I'm writing this, the final pieces are ready for the second coat of satin poly. I should be posting pictures next week.
 

bert35csi

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acat2002 said:
Steve, I think $50 is for the bag only. THe pump system is what costs the $$$. Though I agree, a vac bag would probably be far easier.

I bought one of these vaccum bag kit awhile back from Woodcraft for my woodworking hobby but have not had a chance to use it yet. The kit contains the bag and a hand pump. According to the litertures, this little hand pump hand and bag can generate a tremendous amount of vaccum (3000 psi). The bag measures 47"x14", big enough for most projects. Supposedly, this kit was originally made to make laminated skate board by a company known as Roarockit. The electric pump versions are the ones that cost hundreds of $$$.

Bert
 

vraned

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Check out theFoodSaver vacuum sealer. I used it for the whole project: about $170, plus it is an excellent food storage gadget. No affiliation, etc. The $$$ vacuum set-ups are generally intended for big bag woodworking projects, not what is needed in this application. All of the veneer pieces easily fit into FoodSaver rolls cut and heat sealed to size.

Engineering digression... No vacuum pump can exceed -14.7 psig (absolute zero pressure at sea level). It doesn't take much area, however, to generate huge clamping forces with just 14-psi. The door trim piece (approximately 2" x 35") in a vac bag experiences approximately 1000-lb of clamping force at this pressure.


http://www.vranedom.com/wood/wood.html

http://www.foodsaver.com/index.aspx?
 

acat2002

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Vraned, I like the 'out-of-the-box' thinking! great tip.
This is exactly what this forum is great for - bouncing innovative ideas off on another! BTW, I've visited your website many times already. Great source of inspiration. Thanks for taking the time to document and share the details. You have taken the word fabrication to a whole new level. It would be great to have a CNC milling machine. Since you have invested so much time in building templates/patterns etc., have you given any thought to mass-producing any NLA components such as dash board/wood?

I wish I had thought of the food vac-bag before I started fabricating reverse-impression foam blocks! In any event, the veneers came out awesome.

Also, I want to start another thread regarding the foam blocks in the driver/passenger floor & kick panel area. These need to be fabricated as well.
 

pamp

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Wood

Panels done in mahogany. Not exactly wizz, bang, bling...But time and cost effective.$175.00 CAD for four. Dash done in place, not a great result but serviceable for now.
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acat2002

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Pamp, nice job! your car is Fjord, rcorrect?
The wood has a nice grain and correct color. My veneers could have been a little better in terms of quality (there are a few natural grain imperfections), but I'm pretty satisfied with the results, especially considering how awful it was prior to restoration.

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This final picture show the collor most accurately.
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Like I said earlier, I was torn between the darker walnut color (e.g. pamp's) and this 'honey teak' color and ultimately think this honey color will look nice with blue leather in a Fjord car.
 

pamp

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Good wood

No, my car is a 1974 "sienabraun- metallic" Kind of interesting, I have yet to see another in this color on the post or elsewhere. That is a nice looking result you have, I agree with the lighter wood you chose to use. On this car the wood is very close to the paint shade. Yeah, it could be better. But this will forever be a no better than "B" car, so I choose not to get too carried away. A driver and no trailer or garage queen. So...I feel free to improvise and try to keep costs down where I can. I put up a couple of pictures on the
14'' vs 16'' wheel thread, these were taken prior to my most recent projects.
Thanks,
Al of Comox
 

Ed G

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It sounds like the 3M product may be great in some applications, but you may want to do some more research. The rule of thumb for adhesives, including woodworking, is when bonding flexible substrates, you should use a solid setting adhesive. When bonding solid substrates, a more flexible setting adhesive is recommended. Talk to a professional woodworker/supplier. Not sure what your PO used, but I bet he thought he picked the best product at the time.

Contact cement, for example, is one of the easier adhesives to use, but it performs poorly in this application. The traditional PVA (polyvinyl acetates, available in different strength grades) would be a good recommendation. Believe it or not, a bottle of of the shelf, "Gorilla Glue" (PVA), may be better than the Marine adhesive in this case.

Good Luck!
 

acat2002

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Ed G said:
It sounds like the 3M product may be great in some applications, but you may want to do some more research. The rule of thumb for adhesives, including woodworking, is when bonding flexible substrates, you should use a solid setting adhesive. When bonding solid substrates, a more flexible setting adhesive is recommended. Talk to a professional woodworker/supplier. Not sure what your PO used, but I bet he thought he picked the best product at the time.

Contact cement, for example, is one of the easier adhesives to use, but it performs poorly in this application. The traditional PVA (polyvinyl acetates, available in different strength grades) would be a good recommendation. Believe it or not, a bottle of of the shelf, "Gorilla Glue" (PVA), may be better than the Marine adhesive in this case.

Good Luck!

Ed, Gorilla Glue works fantastic for bonding plywood, but is is very messy an imprecise. It expands as it dries and I would not use it in any application prone to vibration. Good luck trimming the excess as well! When I bought my coupe, one of the rear wood panels was falling off. I had used Gorilla Glue. It oozed everywhere and eventually failed.

Just to be clear, I used standard wood veneer adhesive to adhere the mahogany. The 3M adhesive was only used to adhere the mounting blocks. I used the West Systems 2-part Marine Epoxy for the repair of the damaged plywood areas of the dash board. Typically anything designed for a marine environment far exceeds standards for any other use (auto, home, even some industrial applications).

I had tested each product on sample wood prior to proceeding. The 3M Marine Adhesive is used to bond hardwood decking to it's mounting hardware. Impervious to harsh environments and vibrations! Anyone considering wood veneer repair on coupes could use any number of products and I'm sure this is "over-engineering", but I've spoken to some real experts on the subject who swear by this stuff.

Bottom line is test what you're planning to use on some sample peices. I'm not an engineer and others on this board clearly have much more knowlege than I, but I'm simply saying that I've used these products and while time will tell all, what I used apears to be successful.
 

IS3FIFTY

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Door wood panels

Great thread on this subject, btw!

How do you remove from the door the black metal plate onto which the wood panel is fixed?

I removed the tiny screws that attach the black metal plate to the door frame but it' still in place and doesn't come off...

Thanks,
 
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