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Thread: Refinishing Interior Wood Trim

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
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    Refinishing Interior Wood Trim

    I am in the process of restoring my burled walnut wood trip in my 745i. I already completed my shifter surround and now I'm starting on the rest. It took a while to figure out the best products and process, but I think I have it down now.

    Items Needed:

    -Citristrip (any stripper will work but this one is indoor safe and biodegradable)
    -Chemical resistant gloves
    -Splash proof glasses/goggles
    -Laminate Chip (free in kitchen section of home depot)
    -Scotch scrubbing pad
    -Dawn dish soap
    -Super glue
    -Sandpaper (320 & 600)
    -Minwax - Tung oil
    -Minwax - wood finish (I used special walnut 224)
    -Minwax - stain marker (any walnut stain will do. 224 will match the stain and others will just look like a dark spot in the wood)
    -Mohawk - dead flat laquer









    Process:

    1. Setup the area where you are doing this and put gloves and goggles on.

    2. Apply Citristrip to wood finish (remove the plastic clips from the front and rear ash trays and do your best to keep the stripper off any plastic that cannot be removed)



    3. After 30-60 min scrape off the Citristrip with the laminate chip making sure to go with the grain. Once you feel you have done a good scraping job, wipe the surface clean with paper towels. You should have a mess like this:



    4. Repeat step 2 and 3 (picture below shows wood between sets)



    5. Repeat step 2 and 3 again, but this time use scotch scrubbing pad before using laminate chip.

    6. Bring all items somewhere to clean with soap and water. I used my bath tub.

    7. Rinse all pieces with hot water

    8. Apply soap to scrubbing pad (after cleaning all the Citristrip off the pad) and scrub until you feel the piece is clean.

    9. Let everything dry for 24 hours



    10. Lightly sand any remaining finish from around the edges. If you did a good stripping job, the sanding will be very minimal.

    11. Repair chips, cracks, and spots that need to be filled. (see below for how to do that)

    12. Wipe the surface clean of all wood dust from sanding and apply stain per instructions on the can. I had gloves on and applied stain with a paper towel. After a couple of minutes or whenever you feel you have the color you want, wipe the piece with a clean paper towel. Note: stain will need to stay on the lighter pieces longer or take a couple of coats. Once the color is what you are looking for, let dry for 24 hours.

    Stain complete:




    13. Apply multiple coats of Tung oil with a clean rag or paper towel. I did about 5 coats. The bottle recommended at least 2 coats. Follow directions on the bottle for applying.




    14. Tape off metal areas on ash trays and apply 2 layers of lacquer with 20 minutes between coats. Make sure all dust and foreign matter is cleaned off before starting this process.

    15. Use stain marker to color the spots you patched. After 15-20 min, wipe the spots with paper towel.

    16. Apply another coat of lacquer and wait 20 min.

    17. Apply stain to spots that still look too light.

    18. Apply another coat of lacquer and wait 20 min.

    19. repeat until the patch spots are to your liking.

    20. light wet sand with 600 grit sandpaper and let dry.

    21. Apply a couple more coats of lacquer for good measure.

    Finished product!







    How To Repair Chips and cracks:

    What this process does is fill the spot with glue and wood dust. The superglue and sandpaper mixes together and fills the spot. The end product will just look like a light spot in the wood, but should be smooth to touch. You can touch these spots up with the stain marker between laquer coats if they are still visible.

    1. Apply superglue to the damaged spot
    2. Sand (320) the spot, superglue and surrounding areas
    3. Repeat until the chip or crack is filled

    This is an example of 1 of the many spots I repaired on mine. Most only took one round of sand/glue, but this one was the worst I had and it took about 3-4 rounds of glue/sand.

    Before:


    After:



    After stain applied:



    You can see the light spots from the repair work. These will be touched up with the marker later.



    Final look at the repair work. Depending on what the repair spot looked like, the finish will look like a dark spot in the wood or a natural imperfection.

    Last edited by SicStang03; 03-18-2015 at 10:06 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Finally got around to oiling the wood. Hopefully finish everything up this weekend. All that's left is a couple more coats of oil and some lacquer.

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    I'm interested to see how this comes out
    2000 BMW M5 Evolve Alpha-N Tune, Evolve Carbon Fiber CAI's, UUC Short Throw Shifter, Dinan Front STB, Dinan Rear Sway Bar
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    1985 BMW 745i 18" Style 37's, Team745i Chip, Getrag 265/6, Clutchmasters FX-300, UUC Short Throw Shifter, Strut Tower Bar, Bilstein HD's ("Build" Thread")(SOLD)
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  4. #4
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    Nice, i want to see how it look at end

  5. #5
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    Subscribed

  6. #6
    Join Date
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    Finished the restore. I'm going to swap this into my car and do the whole process again on the wood that is still in my car.

    I'll be selling the extra set of wood after I restore so if you have crappy wood (no pun intended) or want to upgrade to the burled walnut wood, let me know.

    This process take forever and is a pain in the butt.. but worth it!

  7. #7
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    subscribed for later... I need this in my life.

  8. #8
    Join Date
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    1989 535i
    Old post, but did you ever take any pics of the end result?

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