[W126 Coupe] Best way to preserve wood trim?

[Dawid Loubser]

Hello all,

The burl wood trim in my car is generally still in excellent  
condition, but some of the
pieces have started to develop small cracks (e.g. around the window  
switches, etc).

These few cracks are still in many cases quite small, but obviously  
penetrate the
depth of coating of the wood. I want to know if there is anything at  
all I could do
or apply to, in the long term, minimise this sort of thing from  
happening?

I generally don't leave my car in direct sunlight, etc, and I can  
live with a small
crack here or there on a 20-year old car, but what could be done in  
the long run
to make the wood not look the the wood of the 1963 fintail I'm busy  
restoring?
(i.e. completely and utterly cracked, busy with complete re-coating)

What is the best way to keep the wood looking good for the next 20  
years?

The only related post I found after extensively searching the  
archives, is the
one reproduced below.

thanks,
D.



> From: Jim Alexander (jralex at ix.netcom.com)

> Date: Sun Jan 06 2002 - 16:06:11 EST

>

>

> I just bought some back issues of STAR. Sixty copies for $60. I ran

> across an article about wood restoration in some issue that said to

> treat it like exterior. First to use a wax remover/cleaner as found in

> grocery store. Then use Dupont white rubbing compound to micro polish

> the polyester resin finish followed by Dupont # 7 liguid cleaner to

> remove faint blue haze left by the compound. The compound should be

> applied by bare hand by the way. The poyester coating is only 25

> thousandths so be careful. Very small cracks in the finish might could

> be melted together with a solvent but would continue to stand out if

> there was dirt still in the crack. This is all I can remember from the

> article other than the manufacturing process and that at one time  

> there

> were 600 people doing the wood but were now down to 300 in that

> department. When I run across the article again I will pass on any

> further information not covered here.

>

> Jim Alexander