This is a write up that Dayclona did a number of years ago.
I take it your looking to save a few bucks, who isn't, esp when it comes to steering wheel restos, the guys that do it full time, spend hours upon hours mapping out the grain, and it's uniqueness, never mind etching it in, plus any repairs, replating,fabrication, etc...I've been doing steering wheels for decades now, for myself and customers,....your looking to have a nice wheel, on a budget, which you can do,.....I take it you have no interest in replating the spokes, the pits are pretty deep, so your gonna have to break out the sandpaper and elbow grease whether you replate or not, your gonna remove the original plate sanding, if you want to try and reproduce the brushed look, after you've sanded the spokes to a 400-600 grit finish, with no scars/scratches, use a piece of red scotchbrite, or green, or gray, depending on what brush finish you desire, bolt the wheel flat to a bench, use a piece of wood, like a thick popsicle stick, wrap it once with the grade scotchbrite you intend on using and pull it across the spoke, starting from the rim, ending in the center, keep "brushing" the spoke slowly, and with pressure, maintaing a straight pull, untill you've acheived the brushed score you want, you can repeat this process after it's been replated, or if you want,or seal it in Eastwoods Nilac clear spray, so the steel won't start surface rusting, put the wheel away for the spokes to cure, if you cleared them, use the Nilac, as it's geared for raw metal, cheap clear will peel/dull/yellow after a while......then carefully wrap up the spoke center, tapeing off very thoughly at the spokes where they met the plastic rim, don't need to make a mess of the spokes after finishing them,.....Now I usually address the rim, your doing the blowrim, the back half will be painted black, if your going stock?..if there's any big nicks/cracks, I usually fill with JB weld, if you have cracks or seperations in the wheel, these are tricky to adress, for seperations I dress or taper back the damage for filling, you need to make the repair look like a natural graining in the wood, not a band, or plug of filler, so you need to actually increase the size of the damaged area, to spred it out along the grain of the wheel, in an arch shape matching the wheel, so that you can hide the repair,.......after you have carved out the damage area, fill it with JB weld, make sure the plastic is clean, dust free, any main rim steelcore band is scraped raw, apply the JB, allow a few days for curing, cut it down below the surface of the outer plastic rim,sand out the rest of the rim with 150 grit paper, lightly, just a little so that you can apply another filler layer, a very thin layer of polyester filler made by USC, known as Duraglass, usually comes in a white can, when mixed with it's white hardner it stays green,...no good, pick up a tube of blue hardner, that will turn it brown, by varing the amount of blue and white hardner with the green Duraglass filler, you can match the rims exsisting brown shade, so that you can hide the repaired areas, after some trial and error, you feel that the repairs are to your satisfaction, you can decide what grain pattern you want to apply to the wheel,if your wheel was in "readable" shape before you started, make a map of what the grain was, and reproduce it, or make your own pattern, I use a variety of items to score the plastic rim, from peices of hacksaw blades, sawzall blades, razor blades, to coarse thick wire wheels mounted in dremels, to plenty of homemade etching tools, the etching, or carving of the rin takes some time, depending on your pattern, after your done, lightly sand it smooth, to make the new grain you've carved pop, paint the rim with a flat black paint, let it dry for a few minutes, then using a rag, like a T-shirt carefully wipe down the wheel with lacquer thinner, this will remove the black from the rim, but leave it in the grain, on the blowrim wheel, you can leave the black on the backside, wipeing off just the woodgrain face, to color the wood, I use Minwax furniture stain, not gel, WOODSTAIN, I buy a few of the tiny pint cans, (Special Walnut) is my woodstain color of choice, I look for the cans that when opened have settlement on the bottom, I drain off the liquid, and use the thick paste on the bottom,so don't shake or stir the cans,... you have to add some of the liquid to make it brushable, brush on 1 coat quickly, let it dry a few days, if it needs to be darker, brush on another coat quickly, don't play with it, as it will reactivate the first coat,....nowif the woodgrain looks desirable, the black in the grain will show thru the transparencey of the woodstain, using 1/8 masking tape, tape off the outer polished band that seperates the woodgrain from the black back half, remember you must be gentle with the wheel, until you have clearcoated it,....clearcoating, again your choice, premimum CC, gun sprayed sanded and hand polished, spray can Nilac,...there's also flat spraycan clears, if you don't want any gloss, I'd recommend the SEM line of plastic clears, Gloss, stain, low sheen, flat,...your choice...all depends on how much effort/money you want to invest,.....as far as the outer polished 1/8" band if it intact, you can polish it out before you start on the wheel, then tape it off as you go thru the various processes, or if you want to change it's color, just apply custom pinstripe tape,...3M also has an 1/8" chrome tape to reproduce a missing band, if you can't repro your own metal band, if you use the tape, put it on before you apply a FEW coats of clear to "lock" it in, so that you don't palm it off later steering the car,.......you can write a book, as to all the different methods to restore a wheel, everyone has there own secrets/tricks/methods,...all that matters in the end, is it looks like a quality peice, and if you can say you did it yourself, and for just a few bucks,..... it's that much better,....if you have a "junk" wheel to practice on, try your hand at that first, to develope a feeling, for what is needed
