3 spoke steering wheel restore? DIY

[Hell_Fish]

Im working on restoring a 3 spoke woodgrain steering wheel for my 65. The wheel is aged. It had 2 cracks that I opened up with a cone grinder on my drimel and filled in with JB weld.

I plan to skim coat the wheel in bondo to fill in all the micro cracks and then add texture with 60 grit sandpaper for the wood grain. Then the idea is to prime, paint a light brown basecoat with a dark brown top coat and wet sand to the base coat leaving the dark only in the grains.

How are other people restoring there wheels?

 

[Bulldozer]

try this

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=220465

 

[va58]

Instead of sandpaper to give you the texture for the wood grain, use a hacksaw blade and drag the blade across to cut wood grain in the wheel.
Go back and forth to get different patterns. Hold the saw in both hand and drag it with some force across the wheel. You want it to cut into the wheel.
After you cut these, sand to smooth out the cuts. when these wheels were brand new, there was a texture finish to the wheel. When I paint the wheel, I paint the base color and after it dries, I use a slightly lighter color and wipe the wheel with it to get the color down into the grain cut with the hacksaw blade. Then when completely dry a light sanding to make sure all the color of wiping it down is remove except for what is in the grain,and then clear coat.
That is the way I do it...

 

[Hell_Fish]

Do your end up looking like long grain or short? From the few pictures I found online, seens the OE was short. I was thinking the corse grit paper for longer grains, but I will try your suggestion out.

 

[Nite Moves]

I used Epoxy. PC7 it workrd great and sanded down awsome. I didnt paint my wheel with paint. I used plasti dip in a aresol form. It gave it a rubber type finish. It looks a bit dull but i can paint over top if i want. Your project looks good. Im not a huge fan on the JB weld. Thats just me though.

 

[Hell_Fish]

Here is some playing from last night. The first is the original grain that has not worn off the underside of the wheel. The second was me trying to use a hacksaw blade and the 3rd, while not the clearest pic is the coarse grit paper in a V as if the wheel was a piece of wood turned down exposing the grain. Im just trying it out at the moment before I coat to cover the micro cracks.

 

[Nite Moves]

Looks good, nice touch