In a message dated 8/14/01 1:44:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Radialman@aol.com writes:
> Hey guys, I took off the grip dealo off my steering wheel to get at the
> original wood, but when I did...to my surprize...it was covered with rubber
> tubing over a steel tube that gives the wheel it strength...
>
> RATS!!!!!!
>
> I wanted to drive with that wood...what can I do?
Make your own wooden wheel using the steel core as a replacement.
Find someone with a chop saw. Buy some mahogany or black walnut and rip it to
about 5 inches wide and make a ring the appropriate diameter using about 6
segments. Each cut would have to be 60 degrees. Glue the segments together
(do this twice for the top and bottom). A cloth strap clamp available at Home
Depot works well for this. Once dry (overnight) use a router to route a
groove in the center of the segments at the exact diameter to accept the
steel ring. The best way to route this groove is with a circle jig. (You
basically fix a router to a piece of plywood and offset a nail in a hole to
rotate the router, or you can buy a ready made circle jig from Sears or other
wood working suppliers). Do this to one side of the top and bottom pieces.
Then cut the outside to rough curves with a saw (hand saw, band saw or saber
saw). Use a round over bit to round the sides. With a small chisel, waste
openings for the spokes of the wheel in the appropriate places. Glue the two
halves together with polyethylene glue (or resoucinol - both are water
proof.) Sand and finsh to taste, including carving finger mounds if desired.
If you want to get fancy, make a compund miter cut to provide more surface
area for the cut, that's what the factory did. Also, my Tiger had a black
plastic ring inlaid in the wheel along the circumferential direction. The
way to do this is to use a straight bit in the router and route a shallow
groove using the circle jig. Do this before assembly. Then use veneer,
plastruct model plastic or tinted expoxy to fill the groove. Alternately,
you could embelish the wood with round holes like Ferrari steering wheels.
BTW, I'd make the steering wheel a little thicker than the factory did.
While the skinny wheel is a vintage feel, it doesn't feel as meaty as todays
wheels.
Its really only a weekend project.
I did this to my wheel, except I used many of the factory pieces and only
replaced a few broken ones. But the concept was the same.
Rob Kempinski
Melbourne Fl
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