Mercedes 220S

   First I must apologize for the last three photos of the finished dash. I loss all my photos in 2013 and am currently attempting to get good photos of the finished car and dash....... which is in Tacoma, 370 miles away. Stay posted..........

   Here's the process...... paint stripper, rinse well, dry ..... bleach, rinse well, dry ..... sand, dye, dry ..... clear, cure, sand carefully!! ..... clear, cure, sand carefully!! ..... clear, cure, and WAIT a long, long time ..... the longer the better, kind of like whiskey. Then........ final block carefully and polish very, very carefully. Just remember one thing .... if you sand through the clear at any time on dyed wood there is no going back, this is not like a metallic paint that you can blend in a touch up on. This is dyed WOOD that is under the clear. There is usually no touching it up.

   This wood was matched to the exact original color with aniline dye, my coloring of preference due to it's clarity and UV resistance.

   The only down side of having wood like this in your vintage automobile is that you will run a higher risk of being in an accident due to looking at your dash and NOT the road. ....... also sunglasses are advisable on bright days.

Jaguar MK IX

   This set of wood is a standard Jaguar two tone, walnut veneer over mahogany. What made it challenging was Jaguar used three different woods where they wanted it to appear as walnut, walnut (brown), mahogany (orange) and elm (white). They had stained them so dark, it looked like flat brown paint on many of the pieces, hiding the grain. I used several different mixes and applications of dyes to bring them all to a matching shade of walnut without hiding the grain.

   In photos 5-6 there is a close up of a recessed scratch I had to carefully raise with steam. There were also several factory sand-throughs on the veneer and other miscellaneous gaffs that all needed artwork to repair, hence picture 13 of my toners, mixing palate and brushes.

   Every piece of wood for this car is the original wood that came in this car from the factory.

Other European

   These are just two more of the many wood dashed interiors I've done over the years, including Jaguar MK's, XK's, Rolls, Mercedes etc.

   I wish I was able to share some photos of the equally beautiful wood steering wheels I've restored. I'm hopefull there will be more in the future and I'll be sure to photograph them.