Good Evening! This is Martin in Menifee CA; my car is a 2001 XK8 convertible in Roman Bronze.
The problem I am hoping to solve is refinishing the veneer on one piece of the dash which is the instrument cluster behind the steering wheel.
Interesting that all other piece of veneer are fine, so no indication of why the piece has a failed finish.
I can find enough evidence around the edges to be sure this piece of veneer is part of the original set of dash pieces.
The damage is a dark clouding of the color which obscures the underlying detail of the veneer. The piece is now removed and on my workbench.

Have read many posts on refinishing and the process looks to be difficult, involving a number of chemicals and other possibly damaging use of tools.
Saw a post that indicated the clouding could be caused by humidity or dampness getting under the original polyeurathane clear coat.
Suggested cure to use a hairdryer to evaporate the trapped moisture, but not working for me.
At this point, I am leaving the panel on an iron bench in our backyard, exposed to desert sunlight during the daytime hours. (my idea since we live in the desert)
Appears to be making very slow progress to reveal the burl details, but very slow.

An suggestion on moving this faster for a one piece task?
All comments welcomed.
Regards,
Martin

 

it is not hard to remove the finish. GoofOff makes a good enough product. Putting on the new epoxy is not that hard either, but it will look different than the other pieces since they have aged.

 

 

Scott, thanks for the advice. I'll get goof off today. Regards, Marin

 

I am anxious to see how it comes out, since my whole dash is cloudy / milky!

 

Happy to report. Will get goop off later this week.
Plan is to try out on a corner of the panel while taping off the rest.
Peculiar that only this panel went cloudy, although the burl patterns that I can make out are matching to the undamaged panels.
I'm taking a chance on this but not willing to purchase a whole dash panel set with only one faulty panel in my car.
See attached pic. The right fender distortiion is the lighting, car is undamaged with regard to Roman Bronze paint.
Regards,

 

when you put on the new epoxy just make sure you have a torch to get the bubbles out, if you mess up just take it off and try again.

 

I have never had much luck doing this and use the vendor Jaguar dealers use here in the US. I found this out by accident when my 2005 STR was still under warranty and one of my wood pieces cracked. Or I thought it had cracked. Dealer had it fixed and it was so well done I asked how they did it. Well they don't! They send it off.

It's Madera Concepts. They have done several wood panels for me and they have all been OEM level. After talking to Madera they said it's the clear finish that has cracked and not the wood.
Might be worth a call to them?
Madera Concepts
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.

 

I've tried refinishing some Jaguar dash wood and picnic trays (from a VDP), and I gave up on it. I don't claim to be an expert. I've refinished quite a few bits of furniture, but I had to humbly submit to failure on the Jag veneer and finish. I sent a bunch of stuff off to be redone and bought a shift knob from British Autowood. The results were worth it. I hear Madera Concepts is great too if you're on the other coast.

 

Every good-sized city has a club consisting of retired woodworkers who still get together to work on special projects that interest them. These guys have worked on everything, have access to every woodworking tool known to man, and can knock out these dash panel refurbishing jobs in their sleep. The local club here did some beautiful panel restoration for me back in the early 1990s and also designed and built a gorgeous custom jewelry box out of some scrap mahogany wood I had. I gave it to my wife as a birthday present that year and she still cherishes it. Those guys would not take my money to pay them for their services so I purchased some high-quality walnut and oak planks at the local lumber yard and took that wood to them. They were very appreciative....

Google your city name along with "retired woodworkers club" and see what turns up....