Steering wheel restoration

[MarkE]

The rim had split in my Coupe, but it was a very simple repair. Firstly, it was a straight line split along the grain, and when squeezed together between thumb and forefinger, it went back together. I just put some strong woodglue in the split and held it together with a couple of G clamps for a day.

I've noticed there is a guy on eBay selling the wood for E Type rims...maybe he'd do the older style one?

[Heuer]

Nobody does the original style beech wood unfortunately, besides which the attraction of these wheels is in their rarity and originality.

[HarryW]

David,
Did you ever manage to get the steering wheel repaired?

[Heuer]

Harry

I believe the steering wheel has indeed been restored but I have not seen it and no idea who did it. I bought it for a friend and he gave it to the people who look after his Lola T70 race car. Will try and find out the details.

[Heuer]

Just a heads up to say there is a nice early Coventry Wood Bending Company Ltd steering wheel for sale at the moment: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0349570205

[patteian]

Hi,

I have an early steering wheel that has a a few splits in the wood.

Have contacted Len Chandler, he no longer restores Etype wheels.

I have found a few restorers on a Google search but wondered if anyone could recommend.

Kind regards

Ian

[vikla]

Regarding getting new wood for wheels I posted recently on another post where to get it.
The guy is Nick Reeves, email on nfreeves@btinternet.com
He currently has back orders and is having trouble sourcing a new batch of suitable wood.
He does the new wheel wood for both early S1 'round section' wheels as well as for the standard wheel with thumb indent.

Whilst I have been waiting for Nick to fulfill my order for my standard wheel I chanced upon an early S1 wheel on eBay. I fought it out with another person and eventually won it and it arrived today.

Just a few comments relating to this post and other posts regarding refurbing the wheels.

Mine looks very original and has a number of cracks, the worst down the bottom. I think people have said elsewhere about what glue to use when trying to clamp them up - can someone remind what is best?

I notice that the aluminium has not been lacquered, the only evidence of lacquer/varnish is on the exposed rim part when it has been put on the wood.

I have had real difficulty getting the lacquer/varnish off the wood. Nothing much of my selection of strippers would really lift it. Anyone got any good suggestions.

Pictures below are after I have used Colron furniture stripper and wire wooled it.

After a lot of effort it is still pretty dark and a long way from the light beech colour of David's wheel. Any thoughts - were they all beech or were some another wood? Quite a few other pictures I have seen are a dark colour.








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[Heuer]

Steve

All CTB wheels used beech as far as I know. Mahogany was used on the later style wheels. I wonder whether your wheel has been restored at some point and they decided to stain it to hide any nicks or other evidence of damage? Suggest you do some research on on how to get rid of the stain using bleach e.g: http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/how-t ... niture.htm or http://www.wikihow.com/Bleach-Wood

I will re-check my wheel tomorrow but I am sure the spokes are lacquered otherwise the alloy would have quickly dulled.

Certainly worth investing some time to save one of these!

[chrisvine]

Steve,

I used Pacer Z-poxy adhesive for the bonding new wood to a spare wheel I was refurbishing. I used it as it was recommended elsewhere on the forum.

As for finishing the wood, I just applied about half a dozen coats of finishing oil rubbing down with very fine wire wool between coats. It gives a lovely finish. Although I think the original wood was laquered.

Chris

[vikla]

Here is an update on how I have refurbished my early style wheel.

To get off the residue of the original varnish I had to resort to sanding it with 120 oxide paper. The results are pics below. What it showed was that the sections of wood were of a variety of red to brown wood. I was surprised to see the sections (ply) are vertical through the wheel. They must have made by wrapping thin sheets round a 15+"cylindrical former and then slicing it up into individual wheel size sections - very efficient in terms of not wasting much wood but presumably very expensive to do.

Any views on what of wood it is would be welcomed - does beech come in this range of colours? The original varnished colour is very similar to David's wheel starting off this post.

The cracks in the wood were pretty small and I used the sanded off wood 'powder' mixed with glues as a filler. Wood glue for the wood cracks and epoxy glue for the gaps between the wood and the alloy rim. Then more sanding, etc, etc

I then applied numerous coats of a special marine finishing oil made for wood use outdoors with a matt sheen. After that I have applied about 5 lots of furniture beeswax to give it a bit more of a shine. Overall it then shows up very nicely the ply sections in the wood.

I used a buffing wheel on the alloy but did get very good results using various metal polishes and polishing creams. I decided not to use any harsh abrasive because at the end of the day I want a wheel which has some patina and doesn't look like new.

Sanded down wheel:



Oiled wood showing ply sections



Finished & polished wheel:

[Heuer]

Steve

From the Forum Kbowledge Base:
"The first 2,000 steering wheels were made by the Coventry Timber Bending Company Ltd (who made the D-Type steering wheels). They were constructed from eight 3mm beech veneers 51/2 feet long and 4 inches wide. These were bonded together and cured by low frequency heating, then spliced into four pieces, to make four wheels. Each wheel was then split again and recessed to take the drilled aluminium spider, bonded again, then hand finished and polished on a lathe. Later wheels were made of mahogany and grooved."

If the wood has been restored in the past it is highly likely it will have been stained, hence my recommendation you bleach it. You seem to have got a good result though! Mine is definitely lacquered and not oil finished. I know all about this because of my interest in guns, old and new.

[vikla]

David
Thanks for the info about production.

I did try to bleach mine in a trial patch on the back but it had no affect even with a strong solution. I'm pretty sure the sanded wood picture shown is the original wood colour having gouged out the cracks a bit before filling and seeing deeper into the wood.
As I said the colour of plenty of the wheels is quite dark as your original post showed.
Googling on the colour of beech does show that it can be quite reddish/brown, see link below

Maybe you were really lucky to get such a light coloured one yourself.

I decided not to varnish or lacquer mine because I dislike the stuff, probably because I have a boat and know the trouble you get with it. By using a non-standard finish it will be much easier to do any re-finishing in the future because the wax will come off easily.

Steve
http://www.realwoodstudios.com/Species_Overview.html

[Paul 012]

http://www.jaguarexperience.com/phorum/read.php?4,3542

post #28, close to bottom of page

If anyone is still watching this post, I finished my steering wheel per above url shortly after getting my Series 2. Just had to get working on something while I waited for parts and this was a perfect small project.
I think for an enthusiast on a daily driver, it came out really well, took very little time and still shows a nice patina.
Perhaps if I had known the value of professionally finished wheels I would have hesitated but I am really happy with the result.

[Heuer]

This is an original CTB Company Ltd beech steering wheel from chassis #860294 and I wanted it properly restored. I found these people http://www.steeringwheelrestoration.co.uk/ Rang them on Wednesday and spoke to the person who restores E-Type wheels. He assured me they return them to as near original condition as possible whilst conserving everything they can. They invisibly repair the wood, ensure it is firmly attached and then lacquer. They do not use stain of any kind as they want the beautiful veneers to show through. They arranged a courier to collect the following day and it is being delivered back to me tomorrow. This is what it looked like:







Pictures of the restored wheel to follow on its return tomorrow.

[Heuer]

Returned as promised:






Cost was ?165.

[vikla]

David

Looks fabulous. Any idea what sort of varnish they used on the wood? I have just replaced the wood (got from Nick Reeves, see earlier in post) on my original 1966 wheel and I'm wondering what to finish it with.

[Heuer]

They said something about a lacquer finish. I will ring them tomorrow and ask.

[1954Etype]

Beautiful. Are you coming down here in it next week?

[Heuer]

Certainly am! Tuesday or Thursday? Currently have Russell from Reflectology weaving his magic.

[PeterCrespin]

David

Looks fabulous. Any idea what sort of varnish they used on the wood? I have just replaced the wood (got from Nick Reeves, see earlier in post) on my original 1966 wheel and I'm wondering what to finish it with.

Rustins two pack plastic coating. Any DIY place that sells Rustins stains can order it for you from the rep. 250 mL plus a corresponding bottle of hardener is a lot but that's what I got second time because I knew I'd be doing a Classicg Jag interior as well. See if they do a smaller 125mL tin if you just want to do your wheel.

Pete