MG-Cars.info

Welcome to our Site for MG, Triumph and Austin-Healey Car Information.

Parts

TR parts and Triumph parts, TR bits, Triumph Car Spares and accessories are available for TR2, TR3, TR3A, TR4, TR4A, TR5, TR6, TR7, TR8, Spitfire and Stag and other TR models are available from British car spares and parts company LBCarCo.

Triumph TR6 - new veneer, old dash

Hi Gents;
About a month ago I had a post on refinishing my dash. Turns out the one I got on ebay had some pretty bad chips in the veneer and I noted Charlie and Ken had put new veneer. I'm going to go this route but am wondering how to strip the old veneer. It seems a planer would be the easiest way but since I don't have one am curious how others have done it.
J. L. Stein

Hi J.L.,
chemical stripper works well, then some sanding to make
sure you are down to solid wood. I used a fairly new product which is a wood veneer backed with a brown craft paper. No bubbles or wrinkles, you simply glue
it on with some weight. Carefully cut out the holes for the instruments and varnish many times wet sanding
in between coats. Any good exotic wood shop should carry a wide variety of veneers.
Good luck,
Chris
Christopher Trace

JL,

If you take a look at the "Tips and Tricks" section on my website you'll find a story on refinishing a dash (reveneering).

hth,

Jim
http://www.thebriton.com/tips.htm
Jim Deatsch

Thanks for the follow-up Jim; I've decided to use the two-ply veneer. You can cut it with scissors it's so thin. You'd be amazed how long it took me to find out what PVA (polyvinyl acetate) adhesive was though. That's Elmer's glue. And I work in a hardware store and sell the stuff. Anyway, that's a great site and thanks again.
J. L. Stein

JL,

aka Elmer's Carpenter's Glue. Works the NUTS! (it's the yeller stuff, dontchaknow.

Jim
Jim Deatsch

JL

My Wife, of thirty years, and I used high quality wood veneer from a speciality wood shop.

We used contact cement, and applied it as a complete sheet. It covered the holes for the gauges, and the glove box, so that the grain stayed in tact.

When the contact cement dried, we used a hobby knife to trim out the holes for the gauges.

Then we put 12 coats of high gloss urethyene, hand sanded inbetween.

Our only mistake was that we use Black Walnut, English Walnut is very light.
Joe

echo, echo, echo. <G>

J

Jim Deatsch

Depending on what your time is worth, I recently installed a solid teak dash from Moss, refurbished all my instruments, still working after 31 years,replaced all the crash panels - now I have orgasms each time I look at it - it is so beautiful it shows up the rest of the car - this deep gold with matched grain, the black/chrome bezels, etc. People are blown away when they see me parked.Took about ten days of hard work but it is so worth it.My old dash was so deteriorated it crumbled when I removed it so had little choice, but would never use a laminated one again. Peter
Peter G

FWIW, I made my own from scratch a while back, as I was using custom gauges and switches and none of the commercially available dashes would do. I cut it out of a solid piece of wood, and cut the glove box out of the solid piece so that the grain matched across the dash.

It was a PITA to do, but as I had no other choice, I'd say it was worth it. I'm not sure it would have been worth the trouble for a stock dash. It did provide a great sense of accomplishment though.

I did not use an exotic wood, nor did I give it a high gloss finish, but that's simply because I don't like an exotic wood or a high gloss finish in a car dash, but it would have been just as easy (or hard!) to do either way.

If any one is interested, I'll be glad to share what I learned about doing it.
Dan Masters

This thread was discussed between 15/09/2004 and 03/10/2004

Triumph TR6 index