[Healeys] Refinish steering wheel

Patrick & Caroline Quinn p_cquinn at tpg.com.au
Fri Jan 1 16:05:17 MST 2016


Hello

 

I must admit that this question has caused me to raise my eyebrows a number of times, especially when it was suggested to use raw linseed oil.

 

Let me run through the timber preservation that I undertake.

 

Our home is a 110 year old farm house that’s made entirely of timber with a corrugated iron roof. Not old compared with European examples, but old for Australia. About every five to six years the timber is cleaned, repaired where necessary and repainted. Inside our home is a mix of timber (floors, walls and ceiling in the original) and gypsum wall cladding in the newer. This timber of treated in the same way, unless there is a desire to change colours.

 

The timber furniture inside the house is mostly French polished and after cleaning is polished with a beeswax and lavender polish. Other timber in the house, like the kitchen is coated with a polyurethane clear finish (modern plastic finish). This is also rubbed back every five to six years and recoated. 

 

The garden is extensive and is shown regularly as part of Open Gardens Australia. In it there are quite a number of decorative and functional structures made of cast iron, welded steel, stone and timber. Some of the timber structures are made from treated pine, are mostly painted and repainted every couple of years. The other timber structures are made from various hardwoods and are not painted, but every six months each is liberally coated with a mix of raw linseed oil and mineral turpentine. By adding the mineral turpentine makes the linseed oil easily penetrate the timber. In my experience raw linseed by itself will not soak into timber completely, leaving an oily residue.

 

Two cars have timber or wooden steering wheels. One is in good condition and I would say is coated with some form of polyurethane clear coating. This is cleaned by wiping over with a chamois every time the car is cleaned. Polyurethane is a modern plastic coating and to treat this with any form of oil based polish/cleaner would be a waste of time as it will not go through the plastic to the timber.

 

The finish of the second steering wheel was in poor condition when it arrived to me. It probably dates from the late 1950s and I would say that it was finished with a form of varnish. I have since repaired it by scraping the timber back as best I could, sanding very gently to remove the remainder and then recoating with a modern polyurethane UV stable finish. While the finish might not be as good as a new wheel I am more than happy with it.

 

While I think the aroma of linseed oil is almost as good as burnt castor oil I would never use linseed oil on a steering wheel.

 

Hoo Roo

 

Patrick Quinn

 

From: Healeys [mailto:healeys-bounces at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Oudesluys
Sent: Saturday, 2 January 2016 1:46 AM
To: healeys at autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Healeys] Refinish steering wheel

 

Several oil products can be used, however I prefer raw linseed oil because, if applied properly, it leaves a very tough and durable coat that is sweat resistant, only needing a polish up with a few drops of raw linseed oil on a cloth once in a while to clean it up. It will not pick up dirt or go soft but it will darken the wood eventually. 

Kees Oudesluijs



Op 1-1-2016 om 14:48 schreef Charlie:

I believe that boiled linseed oil will also soften the existing finish to the point that it will pick up dirt and become quite ugly.  Old finishes on furniture were formulated with linseed oil and over the years they got soft, picked up dirt and got ugly.  That process would be accelerated with something that in in your hands constantly and would always be sticky.


I would suggest using Restore-A-Finish that is easy to use, yet will not take any wood away to expose the rivets more.  See

http://www.howardproducts.com/prod-restor-a-finish.php.  When I did the search for this I saw that Lowe's and Home Depot may carry it.  I have used it on furniture and also to refinish the hardwood floor in my 60 year old house.  It worked great for the floors, but was more work on the furniture that I worked on because the old finish was harder.  The result will be a much harder finish than anything with linseed oil in it, which is what you want on a steering wheel, gear shift knob, or anything being touched often.

 

As you will see at the website, there are a lot of different 'colors' so you can match what your steering wheel was originally.

 

Charlie Baldwin

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://autox.team.net/pipermail/healeys/attachments/20160102/59860880/attachment.html>


More information about the Healeys mailing list