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I needed to refinish the gear shift knob in my '97 XK8 as the finish had turned yellowish and had chipped off the top and cracked down both sides. After reading CRBASSes excellent thread on veneer refinishing I decided to give it a go.
I mounted the knob on a piece of 5/16 ready rod and heated up the old finish with my paint stripper heat gun. Holding the gun 3 - 4 inches from the knob and moving it back and forth as not to singe the wood, the old finish quickly got real soft and peeled off easily with a sharp 1/2 inch chisel. Removing the old finish took under an hour.
After peeling off the old finish I found out that the cracks were not in the wood and only in the finish. The wood was bleached where the cracks and chips were and to get rid of any left over finish, I sanded down the knob with sand paper starting at 80 grit and working my way down to 240 grit.
Holding the knob up side down by the ready rod I dipped the knob in a can of polyurethane. I then turned it right side up and mounted it in a bench vise and let the polyurethane run down the knob. This made sure there weren't any brush marks and gave it a nice even finish. I let it dry for 6 hours before applying the second coat and gave it 6 coats in all. I gave it a day to completely dry and polished it up with a soft cloth. It turned out pretty hard and shiny.
Lovely DIY work, on the shifter knob, with a repair taken with loving time and care.
I wonder how many of us have been inspired by another Forum member's efforts to try something. One of the best features of the Jag is the lovely wooden bits in the interior. We could of course find replacement parts, but it's immensely satisfying to see us repair and/or upgrade what we have with bits we already have in the garage.
Further progress . The next problem was removing the stains, which you can see were quite bad .
I tried Bob Vila who suggested a water /salt slurry. After much scrubbing they were lighter , but still very visible.
I also tried toothpaste (minty fresh but no cleaner ). And Murphys Oil soap. (also not effective). So in the end I dried it and threaded it into a tap and chucked it up.
Ten minutes of light work with 320 grit and its ready for finishing!
A good evenings work!
Hi Johnken, after heating up the old finish my chisel took it off like a hot knife through butter.
I've only had the shifter surround off 2 or 3 times but it seems like the veneer is very thin, maybe
an 1/8 inch or less. The two things I'd be worried about is burning or singing the veneer and scratching
it. I don't think that there is enough material there to give it a good sanding to get rid of any errors. I'm
going to try the gate surround and steering wheel when the weather warms up and I don't have to deal with
frozen, brittle plastic. If you are looking to just repair a few little cracks you might want to try a product from
Solarez UV Resins that CRBASS mentions in his thread. I talked to Gary there and he has a product called
"fly-tie MEDIUM VISCOSITY" that's a clear resin that cures in 20 seconds with a UV light or Fly-Tie Ultra Thin
Bone-Dry Clear. He says that both products are compatible with most finishes and you just have to brush it
over the old finish and zap it with the UV light.
The finish was very easy to remove for me. Work in a small area. The heat softens and loosens the finish and it litterly peels off. When it stops peeling and starts flaking, add more heat.
I'm going to do my shifter surround next. It looks like crap now, so I have little to lose.
Last edited by mhminnich; Mar 31, 2020 at 10:44 AM.
Ozbot, mhminnich,
could you guys please comment on the force /effort required to remove the old coating?
I'm interested to compare the force needed vs. The fragility of the veneer on the shifter surround.
thanks, John
I've had a great deal of difficulty easily removing the coating from the veneer surfaces (especially the shift surround, the key focus of my efforts). I can remove it in my test surround, but tend to singe the veneer, and/or it takes forever. This is why I moved to simply trying to repair the cracks.
The shift knob is much easier, at least for me, since the coating was undermined almost everywhere and flaking off all over the tops. Quick heating and picking at the edges does this easily. Could also have put it into the lathe and quickly cut it off, but didn't do that since I can't do that with the shift surround. The coating is not generally undermined in my shift surround veneers making it generally more difficult.
... If you are looking to just repair a few little cracks you might want to try a product from
Solarez UV Resins that CRBASS mentions in his thread. I talked to Gary there and he has a product called
"fly-tie MEDIUM VISCOSITY" that's a clear resin that cures in 20 seconds with a UV light ...
The key to making this work well is to stain under the the crack and surrounding veneer so it doesn't continue to look like the oxidized finish under the crack (the reason it looks cracked since the veneer is not actually cracked in most/all cases). Still working on this bit....
I've had a great deal of difficulty easily removing the coating from the veneer surfaces (especially the shift surround, the key focus of my efforts). I can remove it in my test surround, but tend to singe the veneer, and/or it takes forever. This is why I moved to simply trying to repair the cracks.
The shift knob is much easier, at least for me, since the coating was undermined almost everywhere and flaking off all over the tops. Quick heating and picking at the edges does this easily. Could also have put it into the lathe and quickly cut it off, but didn't do that since I can't do that with the shift surround. The coating is not generally undermined in my shift surround veneers making it generally more difficult.
I was a little leery about the shift surround and dash board pieces as well. The veneer is pretty thin. Mine are still in
reasonably good shape, only one or two milky streaks that I can live with for now. I think that when they need to be
redone I'll send the pieces to a professional refinisher and get them to do all the interior veneer pieces at the same
time so they stay looking the same. The steering wheel I figure is fair game as it's solid wood and the top is chipped
and cracked like the shifter knob was. Let me know how it goes with the shift surround. I'm interested in hearing your
results.
Nearly finished with my shift knob. It got 5 coats of poly and a 600 wet sand , and this is 3 coats later
The bad is I did not sand out all the straining as I had thought. A smart check would have been a mineral spirit wash to verify readiness before I started the poly. Oh well! Still a world better than where it started.
Last edited by mhminnich; Mar 31, 2020 at 10:58 PM.
N
The bad is I did NOT sand out all the straining as I had thought. A smart check would have been a mineral spirit wash to verify readiness before I started the poly. Oh well! Still a world better than where it started.
Shifter knob refinish
