Veneer removal warning

Saloons
1

Hello once again boys and girls, I am attempting to re-veneer the wood in my car and although I have never done this before I am reasonably skilled with tools and it gave me an excuse to buy more tools, PLUS it has saved me a fortune.
In doing this project I have discovered various things that need to be done to the Burl Walnut veneer before you can apply it and what type of glue to use etc. (if anyone would like any advice that I can give (but I am not a professional) I will be more than happy to let you know what I have discovered.
the main reason for this post is to warn you when removing the old veneer be sure to re-glue the wood BEFORE you remove the old veneer as the original glue will have dried up and need to be replaced before you start anything, I glued mine and then left it for two days to set properly.
See photo for what I mean.

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Gary

2

I redid the veneers in my MKII. There were some minor repairs that were needed.

Because most of my veneers were in good shape, just the outer finish peeling off, I only had to strip the old finish.

I used a commercial stripping agent and worked a small area at a time. I was worried about any mechanized sanding as the veneer is so thin.

The stripper was applied and watched for its reaction and a single edged razor blade was used to strip off the old finish. The area was dried immediately to keep the stuff from penetrating and loosening the glue.

The razor blade was changed frequently and you always draw the blade towards you with the blade trailing, sound dangerous, it isn’t, just needs your full attention.

One thing I did notice…the veneer that makes up the defroster guide to the windshield, was long since gone. I had to get some new, that matched, hard, not impossible.

One issue. Veneer is thin! You can’t glue bare veneer to your dash and then expect the topcoat to be absorbed properly to the new veneer. You will likely encounter splotchiness in the way it covers. I put a mist coat on the back side and let it dry. Once dried, then it was glued.

Oh yeah…once I had a sufficient amount of polyurethane it was wet sanded starting with heavier grit and subsequent coats sprayed and waited for 8-12 hours between sanding. I finished with 2000 grit.

If you are dealing with an earlier car with the rougher matter finish, felt and pumice can be utilized before a topcoat of wax and buffing is used to finish.

Tons of ways to do this many work, some do not.

I used polyureathane because there was a UV protectant in their product. It came in cans and spray cans, nothing special.

3

I am confused. What do you mean by re-glue the wood? Just let some sort of glue seep into gaps where the old glue had dried out? Scrape a little to remove old glue.
Clamp anything? What kind of new glue did you use? Sorry if I am asking silly questions.

4

No such thing as a silly question.

Without separating the wood scrap the old glue away (as much as you can) and spread new glue in its place , obviously this is done on the back of the wood (I did this on ALL the dash pieces), you should not need to clamp it unless you notice it is coming apart, although when I removed the glue from the little blocks on the back of the dash some of them came off and I re-glued them without using a clamp.
most of mine was held together by the veneer.

The glue I used which was recommended was Titebond III (see photo)

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5

I did a writeup on my veneering project on my Mk2 in 2017. You can find it here