9 to 10 cars in our rental fleet of vintage cars, we have the stage where we probably again Furbish at least one of them reaches one year. This year it was time for our 1961 Jaguar Mk2. He went to the fixed shell in January for a few bubbles of rust at the bottom of the doors, some small pieces and spray welding. The problem is that the interior can look tatty compared to. So we ordered a new set of interior trim and decided to re-furbish the woodwork.

Jaguar MK2 plated woods almost as much as a small dining room with door to-door panels, instrument panel gauges and wood panels in the top plate has a very heavy piece of hardwood veneer to match the door panels. I restored wood trim in classic car before her by the hand, decided for themselves.

Our wood was made a little odd function, the uncertain how much work would be necessary. Behind the facade, it was clear that the wood was painted covers on both front doors and the top part of the wood grain on it. A little worried that I might find large areas of missing veneer and painted by fillers replaced, am I very carefully removed all the varnish remover Nitromors.

I did this before when I rebuilt the wood in our MG RV8 years, we knew that it effectively attack the paint without removing the paint. After several applications Nitromors careful scraping, ended to be removed with steel wool with a final demand, I was left with the bare wood. All grain was gone painted, but the coating was in good condition with no missing parts. I came to the conclusion that New Zealand, the sun (where the Mk2 had spent most of his life) had warped and the paint is not the whole band, a previous owner had painted the wood grain paint and then paint on top.

Relieved that I was not at the expense of re-plated with all I went to go paint. When I read the MG RV8 woodwork in 2003, rebuilt, I have a spray polyurethane varnish, which gave a very good finish. I have the same approach and the same can even paint was still in my garage. The first few layers sputtered OK, although I had a few races seem small. I sanded it down and apply another coat. No problem. The tin coating is used up, I bought a few boxes of the same product, adding another layer.

Disasters

The new paint coat attacked I had already applied and crumpled like a painting “crackle” finish on our MGB. I think the producer has been the recipe of a solvent or in my old box away changed, and the two attacked each other solvents.

Back to Nitromors and everything came back to bare wood. I thought, worth a try buying a different approach and decided to make a brush on the paint so instead a tin Ronseal quick-drying paint to use inside. I used Ronseal products for home before and always had good results. Part of my logic was that appear when everyone does it, before I could brush the glaze hardened and remove the risk of short-and the need to sand the wood work again.

I did all this in February and the garage is too cold for the paint, as it applied at temperatures above 10 ° C, so I painted all four door panels at room temperature in the kitchen. The water-based varnish Ronseal is milky white in the form, but should be dry, clear finish. I have all four door cappings a single layer of Ronseal and although he has not yet run, he showed a bit of brush marks. Normally, the paint is dry, the surface tension is resolved, it removes all brands. I quickly brushed freshly painted door panels to help the process.

Disasters

The quick-drying paint was almost dry after 10 minutes and I was brushing the glaze all lumpy and grainy. It has never been so clear, drying to a slightly milky color.

Back to Nitromors to strip everything back. This time turned the wipers and water-based varnish to a pulp and was extremely difficult to remove. Finally, all removed to bare wood and I went back to clean A-Plan – spray paint.

This time only with the new paint and spray cans in extremely thin layers, about 10 in all and leaving the coating to harden at room temperature, I saw a tailored finish. The surface is very smooth, wood grain, clear and dynamic, it is now possible to see that the door cappings are mirror images of each other, the rear pair and veneer panels are a mirror image left and right.

So much work, but worth it. The interior of our Jaguar Mk2 now looks as good as freshly painted exterior.

Lessons Learned

* Spray paint is better for applications such as the brush on the paint.
* Do not use old paint cans, even if they do not use not before the date on the can.
* Spray is as fine as possible, permission to ride at room temperature.
* Then do it again and again and again.

In short – the preparation and patience.

Tony Merrygold the Open Road Classic Car Hire is an expert in classic car hire in the UK has been running since 1997, the open road. Tony offers courses telling people how to start a car rental company has trained more than 100 people in the last three years.

The combination of his 20 years experience in sales and marketing with the knowledge of the industry classic car rental at the beginning of 2008, Tony started a new web portal Classic Car Hire World – Classic sports car rental listings and around the world. Within three months of its launch, the site has a Google PageRank of 4 / 10 and was achieved on the first page of Google.com when users searched for displayed ‘classic car hire. “