Question i hope that you have had a very merry christmas so far, my ski slope panel was very badly cracked with pieces of the lacquer missing. so i have bought some new vaneer and will remove the old and glue the new piece on. etc i hope that the colour matches the other original panels in the car, i have tried to select a match but will not know how good it is until i have sprayed it and polished it, i will let you no best regards dave courtney.
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hi! i a am restoring a 1988 xjs and cannot afford to send of walnut panels for renovation, i have a good quality spray gun and a clean area/workshop. but cannot find a paint stipper that works on the lacquer nothing that i have tried, seems to remove it. also what type of lacquer should i use for the finish coats. i know that it takes many coats to do this flatting off between coats. can you advise on stripping and process, regards dave courtney.
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Hi David,
I have never refinished any of the panels in an "S" but have refinished several panels and dashes in the Series III XJ-6 and I found them to be urethane. If they were just cracked I was able to use a spray can of urethane on them (The spray fluid is very thin and penetrates the cracks) When this dries it leaves high ridges where all the cracks were but then I used wet sanding paper on blocks, going from 500 grit in steps on to 1200 grit then two stages of paint polishing compound to get the surface back to "Like New". When the cracks were large it took several spray coats, letting each dry hard before adding a next coat and on one I had pieces of urethane completely chipped away I had to use caned urethane and brushed that thicker urethane on in several coats. You must be patient and let each coat dry hard, which depending on the weather conditions took days between coats.
Even though I have not tried it on an "S" I would guess they used urethane on them too.
A lot of the wood trim and even the XJ-6 dash have only a wood veneer and any attempt to strip would damage the thin wood veneer. I had one that the veneer was already damaged so I had to get new veneer and then urethane it.
I hope this helps.
Howard
AnswerI put new veneer on a couple of British cars and the only thing I found to advise on is let the glue dry completely before putting anything on the surface. I used urethane and found it took many coats letting each coat dry hard before applying the next coat. Then I wet sanded and used two stages of buffing compound to get the final gloss finish. It was a lot of work but looked good finished.
good luck,
Howard
