Having bought a nice original 38 Ford steering wheel from Christian (On here as DRSCPE), The other night I set about a quick restoration of the said item. Following is a quick resume'
Here it is in the condition it arrived, It was in good clean original condition, but had suffered from the usual cracking and slight swelling due to rust on the steel core. It had also been previously 'restored'.
The first job was to clear out the old filler and find out just how bad the rust issue was, so using a Stanley knife, I set about cutting out the old and creating a clear and clean cut that could be filled.
It is important that the cuts are down to clean material and that there is some degree of negative return on the cuts, just to give a physical bond as well as a chemical one
It was interesting to find that as I cut into the original part of the wheel, that on the areas where the spokes connect, there was a portion of what looked like cloth wrapped around to bulk out the area. Clean out down to the steel core.
It was at this point that I decided to treat some of the rusty steel with POR15 Metal prep. It converts the rust into a hard black substance and supposedly kills it !
Anyways, once treated and dried properly, I made sure that the edges of the plastic material were once again cut back to give a clean bond.
The stuff I used to fill the cracks is readily available and quite easy to work as it hardens
A 50/50 mix and a good use of an old magazine. This stuff goes off within five minutes but takes a couple of hours to harden properly, so get as much in as you can (where've I heard that before ?) and as it starts to go off level it off as much as you can, until you acheive something like this.
The filler obviously need to be proud of the surface, so don't worry if you have to apply a little more in order to acheive this.
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Work your way around the wheel and once the cracks/gouges are all filled this should arrive
This gives the adhesive/filler time to harden so that you can then attack it with
A rolled up adhesive disc, or
A half round file and a little effort should give you
A little more filling with wet stuff around the spokes and a little careful cutting with a Stanley knife as it hardens along with a good flatting off with a smooth disc to get a good key and a clean surface, should produce a half decent finish, and it should be ready for this.
A quick coat of Epoxy primer and leave to harden
This will give a clean surface ready for flatting and a finish coat (still to come!)
I'll perhaps add a pic once its finish painted, but i hope that this gives someone some inspiration to have a go at the old wheel they have sat on the wall to use in there latest project !