[6pack] Anticipation

[Richard Lindsay]

Hello Friends,
   With my '75 TR6 heading to the paint shop for a nice two-stage Carmine
Red respray, I find myself getting excited about the reassembly process. I
have a new beige interior waiting to go in after I get the brown carpet
installed. Let me share a few pictures to better tell some of the story.

   First up, here is the interior, stripped and ready for reassembly. The
inner paint is Rustoleum burgundy paint, tinted darker with leftover black
paint. The goal here is rust proofing, not 'pretty'. All of the metal is
sound and rust free.

http://aubard.us/75_Triumph/20190311_151429.jpg

   The carpets will be dark brown with black gators on the handbrake and
gear lever. Here's the tunnel cover, already upholstered and waiting to go
in.

http://aubard.us/75_Triumph/20190324_090543.jpg

   The black vinyl bits of the dash are all new and in their boxes waiting.
The original wooden dash was water damaged and de-laminating. The walnut
veneer was peeling off. Here's how it looked upon arrival at my shop.

http://aubard.us/75_Triumph/P1000380.JPG

   I carefully removed the instruments, lights and controls then lifted
away the plywood dashboard. After cleaning, my first step was stabilizing
and restoring the wood. I did so by re-cementing all the lamina of the
plywood with Gorilla Glue for Wood.
   Once that process was complete and the glue cured, I painted (read:
saturated) the entire dashboard with Minwax Wood Hardener. Two coats of
that product left the original plywood substrate (almost as) strong as new,
if ugly. I next sanded all surfaces in preparation for the next step: new
veneer.
   Okay, by now you're probably thinking, "Why did he go to all that
trouble when new, beautiful dashboards are available?" The answer is
simple. Its a labor of love. The pleasure is in the 'doing' as much so as
the result. Okay, with that out of the way...
   While waiting for glue and hardeners to cure, I tested stains on scraps
of veneer. Sadly I didn't document the colors I used but I remember it was
two Minwax stains, appied one over the other. But I'm getting ahead of
myself.
   I thought about the Carmine Red paint choice (original) and the beige
upholstery (color also original) then looked through my stash of veneer. I
had a sheet of walnut but it was straight grain and offered little
'interest'. Also laying about was a sheet of curly maple veneer. I found it
interesting so I tested the stain choice. My decision was made.
   Back at the plywood I cleaned away all sanding dust, painted on a coat
of glue and applied the veneer. I rolled out all the air bubbles then
weighted down the veneer with every book and gallon paint can that I had
sitting about. Two days later I trimmed the edges and roughly cut the
larger openings with an Exacto knife. A couple of hours with the Dremel and
a sanding disk had the openings routed in. A small grind stone in the
Dremel finished the small holes. My garage was covered in fine sawdust as
one might imagine so I swept and vacuumed for another day.
   With the veneer carefully sanded with #400 sandpaper, and vacuumed
clean, I applied the first coat of stain. A day later, the second and final
color was applied.  Two days after that, the first of three coats of
urethane clear coat went on. Here's how it looks.

http://aubard.us/75_Triumph/20190116_111637.jpg

   The color is not quite as vibrant as the camera's flash makes it appear,
but it does complement the beige upholstery. The über clever ones among you
may notice that I did not cut the hole for the dash light rheostat! It is
to be omitted. The instruments are going back in with non-dimmable LED
lamps. And speaking of instruments...

   The gauges and lamps came apart for cleaning, testing and refinishing.
They were a mess, as anticipated, but no repairs were needed.

http://aubard.us/75_Triumph/20190113_111736.jpg

   The black trim on most of the chrome bezels was damaged. I stripped it
off, cleaned the chrome and reassembled a couple of the gauges. They just
didn't look right so back apart they came. I primered then sprayed all the
bezels with satin black and that did the trick, especially against the
lighter wood dash. Here's how they look, awaiting reassembly.

http://aubard.us/75_Triumph/20190113_125147.jpg

   New knobs and switches are in hand. The wiper switch had died, as had
the headlight master switch. The warning light bezels cleaned up okay so
they will (probably) be reused.

   That's it for now. If interested, I'll share engine, wheels, brakes,
suspension, etc., restoration stories. Until then, I hope you enjoyed the
post as much as I enjoyed reliving it.

Rick
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://autox.team.net/pipermail/6pack/attachments/20190812/397fa022/attachment.html>