I manufacture woodgrain for vintage Station Wagons; I also do the black lines for Ford/Mercury. Email me and check out my website for some photos of wagons we've done. We also do the fiberglass trim for Fords. Mick Hoglund www.woodgrain4wagons.com
I hope none of it looks like this! Someone ruined this car with using this woodgrain material. The same pattern just repeats itself over & over and looks horrible in my opinion. Clark
Not sure if ya ran across my thread on here. I will be looking you up in spring. Adam http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330&highlight=truckster
Ah, come on Clark, think of it as veneer book-matching. Mac-Tac and the Automotive products are different, and that really does look like Mac-Tac. Even real veneer is matched on the length grain, not the end-grain. The trick with the exterior stuff is that it is UVA and UVB treated. All kidding aside, it looks so bad on that nice Chrysler that I nuked it out of this quote.
woodgrain repeat The woodgrain I manufacture looks very close to the original stuff. It does not repeat every 12" like in that photo. The pattern is not so exaggerated as in the photo. I can tell that the material on that car is the "current" woodgrain that was produced in the 80's/90's. This weekend I am stripping that same ugly woodgrain off of a '55 country squire. We will be putting dark walnut tan line woodgrain on it, restoring the fiberglass trim and sending along to Barrett Jackson in a couple of weeks. It's a nice red country squire with an incorrect rack (my customer's choice). My website has a few examples of work we've done.
Nice work too, Mike! It was quite a job to refinish my moldings, so I'm sure your professional resources would end up NOS.
Hey Mick, Can you duplicate the woodgrain on my Olds Custom Cruiser Station Wagon..? Judging by your site, I didn't see any G.M. Vehicles, of any era. Though my car is not collectible, on even the most mundane level, I'm still looking to make her look like she did when new, if I can. My transmission scrammed this weekend, and I'm going to have it done by Monday, or Tuesday. Then it's back to my obsession with the woodgrain restoration, I've been posting about since I started here. In fact, that's actually HOW I started here. I put "Woodgrain" into Google, got your web site, and somehow ended up linked to this Forum, by complete accident. So I joined up here...Thanks Mick Hey, doesn't this make it "Your fault" I'm a member here now ?...LOL Nick
Thats a good question that I was about to ask. I have a 1972 Chevrolet Kingswood Estate wagon that has woodgrain that I would imagine that would be IMPOSSIBLE to find. In 1971-72, Chevrolet used "translucent" woodgrain on the Caprice wagons, which allowed a slight hue of the cars actual color to show through the woodgrain to an extent. Now the woodgrain on my wagon is in amazingly good shape (it was stored out of the sun), but there is a spot near the fuel tank opening that has some "bubbling" under it, as well as some bubbling around the right "dog-leg" area. I want to eventually paint the car and I know that this "bubbling" needs to be fixed, but I know I can probably not easily find woodgrain to "patch" back in and will probably have to replace it all. Here are a couple of "close-ups" of my woodgrain.... It shines up really well for about 3 weeks with lemon Pledge.... in some of these, the Pledge was on there, but some it was not. I imagine that finding woodgrain like this would be impossible? As you can see, its substantually darker than Chevrolet used on the 73-76 models. Thanks for any input.
I just did mine this past summer, and posted a lot of 'detective work' here (links, color swatch sources, etc.): http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47 Also posted some 'removal' lessons that I learned in the process here: http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1373 And finally, some tricks I tried to do my wood molding here: http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=708 And here's a few shots: http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4334&postcount=187 Yours looks like mine, for grain pattern, and maybe got blackened with whatever cleaners the previous owners used. Here's one of my heroes' efforts on the process: http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/wood.html But you really want to give Mick a try, he's obviously got the specialty skills down to a science: http://www.woodgrain4wagons.com/
That's what it looks like when the top layer starts separating. Then the grain rubs off and fades, etc.
He is saying Chevrolet made the woodgrain "translucent" so the color of the car is showing through. I've never heard of such a thing! Clark
Yeah, I know that's what he said. It happened on mine, and the same company produced and still produces it for the older wagons. The translucent layer stays on for longer and still holds some of the color film (photosynthesis) and the back color dries up with the glue turning to powder.) Here's a pic of mine before I got down to restoring it. That checked, beigy-looking stuff is dried up, cracked, and faded, but looking closer I could see the car paint right through:
Sorry I have not replied sooner... sorry for any confusion. From what I have been able to gather, Chevrolet used this woodgrain only in 1971-1972 on the Caprice wagons. 1973, they changed to more standard color (lightter color as well). I am not sure if it was ever used on other GM wagons the same years or not. Evidentally, it was "clear" in spots to a certain extent to let some of the cars color lightly show through. I have a photo of a blue 72' Kingswood Estate and you can see some blue tint to it. I also have a photo of a white 72' Kingswood Estate wagon and you can see some lighter tones in it. I guess it was a way to make the cars woodgrain look more appealing? My car is golden brown, so its hard to see the transparancy, but its there. Below is a photo of a page out of the 1972 Chevy wagons brochure... notice it mentions this woodgrain..... Here is a photo of the blue one in the brochure... if you look closely, you can see some blue tint to the woodgrain.... Another thing that was unique to the 1972's only is that they had an optional "luxury" interior, which added brocade cloth interior. Here is a photo page from the brochure... I have personally never seen one with this option.
