As seems to be with many Jaguars, the wood interior pieces weren't in the greatest condition. They were hazy looking and covered with cracks. I looked around to see what others have done. Found a few people who had done something. Most were purchasing replacements or sending them somewhere to be fixed. No way I was going to spend that much without at least giving it a try.
Tried different types of stripper with no luck. Best way was with a heat gun and a scraper. Hold the heat gun to it untill the poly starts bubbling and popping.It will be soft and scrape off rather easily. Once it's all scraped I used fine sand paper to finish removing anything remaining. The veneer is very thin and can easily be sanded thru. Didn't end up with a smooth surface. Was too thin to sand it smooth. However, the rough texture seems to have added to the beauty, sort of a 3d effect.After wiping with a rag with very little stain I applied several coats of polyurethane from the hardware store. Let each coat dry over night . Then sanded with fine sandpaper before adding another coat. There were a couple small spots where I sanded thru. Using a black sharpie and a furniture touch-up pen I went over them trying to copy the look of the grain. That worked very good. If you don't know it's there, you don't see it I kept adding coats until it was flat and shiny. I'm satisfied with the results. Only thing is the lettering on the air bag isn't there now. Some paint and a small brush before the poly could add that if someone really wanted to. . I took some pictures as I did it

 

Couldn't find most of the before pictures. But found a couple


Old finish removed ready for new.

 

 

 

Nice work. Thanks for the detailed description and photos.

 

They look awesome. BUT your shifter knob needs to go - it looks like you cut off the end of a broom stick. 😂

 

nicely done

 

I was at a Pick and Pull this morning. PM me and I'll send you one of the two I just got if you need one. , one had a crack in the poly and I was able to get it down to bare wood in five minutes....you can stain to match!!!

 

Looks great, and i don't even see any bubbles!!

 

The guy I bought it from said it was an axe handle. if you look closer you'll see the wood around the J-gate is a before picture. Somehow I seem to have lost the before pictures, some of the after too. I found the correct shift knob in the trunk of the parts car I got from the same guy. Gave up searching for the jam nut that secures it. Then I found it stuck in the axe handle. The knob was in terrible condition. Cracks everywhere. And a big chunk of Polly missing right in the center. I was surprised

how thick it was . It was about the thickness of a penny , or maybe a nickel. I used the knob for my initial experiment on refinishing the wood. Turned out good. But I have to say the air bag was the best. It's amazing all the colors and the depth. A picture doesn't really give it justice. Some beautiful wood. Can't wait to see it in the car.

A deer kinda changed the program a bit. It's coming along

 

Only bubbles were during stripping off old. Didn't have any issues with bubbles. To start I had some streaking. And not having a lot of patience didn't help. This is something that you absolutely can't rush. I bought a bunch of foam brushes. They work much better than fiber. And I used a new brush for each coat. Don't sand too much between coats. And ended using brown paper bag as sand paper. Hardest part was getting enough coats to make it flat. Man did it take a bunch of coats. Kept saying" one more" then the results would be much better. But still not quite what I wanted , so one more.