Re: Steering wheel refinishing

["B Shuler" <ypp86w@domain.elided>]

There was a previous thread on refinishing wooden wheels with contributions 
suggesting various types and brands of varnish and classic varnish 
techniques to avoid dust and bubbles and I'm sure those posters will suggest 
those ideas to you again.  I'd like to suggest something a little different 
which I recently tried on a Spider wheel that had been out in the weather 
for several years and was in very bad cosmetic condition, although sound.

After scraping and sanding down to mostly clean original wood I recognized 
that some of the smallish dark streaks were just going to become part of the 
character of the wheel. I also decided to skip any stain since the clean 
wood had a nice dark tone without it.  To avoid creating an ongoing 
maintenance regime on a wheel that would probably continue getting more than 
its share of sun and moisture I used clear two-part epoxy glue as varnish.  
I got the kind that comes in a dispenser that has two siamesed syringes so 
measurement of proportions is automatic and exact and shot about half of it 
into a small wide-mouth jar and mixed it very carefully with an old butter 
knife to avoid introducing bubbles.  I used a new medium-priced 1 inch nylon 
brush as a disposable and painted the wheel hanging from a screw eye in the 
ceiling by a length of fishing line tied to the hub of the wheel.  I stuck a 
couple of  sewing needles into the wood to give some purchase for rotating 
and tilting and pulled each at the last stroke. Then, I threw away all the 
stuff that had epoxy on it and let the glue set up undisturbed for a week (I 
had to leave town on a business trip.)

I saved half of the glue expecting to apply one or more subsequent coats, 
but I found the single thick coat flowed out so well and looked so good that 
I decided to leave well enough alone.  The final result is a little bit 
lighter and less red than the factory finish, but the gloss and depth is an 
almost exact match.  It was strictly an experiment, but I was very pleased 
with the result.

Bryan Shuler
Austin, TX


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