Making woodgrain shine

ole_Bill

Member
I had a lady approach me in the supermarket parking lot to admire(?) the interior of my Jag. She sniffed and offered the opinion that the dash wood in her Chrysler Sebring looked as nice as that in my car. I explained to her that the reason her "wood" looked so good was because it was plastic. That raised a question in my mind. I have a burl woodgrain painted on the dash and window garnish of my '36 Sedan but it lacks the deep gloss shine the Jag has. What do I need to do to get that?
 
Why couldn't you bury the woodgrain in clear coat? It would be more trouble than what it's worth on the dash, though.....window garnish moldings would be easy to do.
 
I have used clear enamel in the past, when I did my wood grain dash in my 34 3/W. rubbed it out and it look great. That was 30 years ago. I had the car for over twelve years and it looked like new. Jim.T.
 
I've used a satin clear coat with good results. Some like the gloss better but I never thought that would should shine like a sheet of glass.
 
I took the dash out of my '38 & buried in in spray bomb clear. It helped a lot.
 

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I had a lady approach me in the supermarket parking lot to admire(?) the interior of my Jag. She sniffed and offered the opinion that the dash wood in her Chrysler Sebring looked as nice as that in my car. I explained to her that the reason her "wood" looked so good was because it was plastic. That raised a question in my mind. I have a burl woodgrain painted on the dash and window garnish of my '36 Sedan but it lacks the deep gloss shine the Jag has. What do I need to do to get that?
I have to laugh... it's been said that Rolls Royce spent over a million dollars to get their real wood to look like plastic and General Motors spent the same amount getting their plastic to look like wood.
 
I clear coat all of my wood grain work. you can get the same deep shine as the fake plastic ones, just take's a little work!
 
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