Wood Grain

[ampico-kid]

I may be barking up the wrong tree, but thought I'd throw this question out here anyway. I have a 1930 Town Sedan. The interior is in excellent shape. The one thing that bothers me is that when the restoration work was done, the previous owner chose to paint the dash and window trim pieces the lower body color instead of the wood grain that it should be. I'd really like to correct that and have the wood grain finish on those parts. I did an initial search for people who do that kind of work and to say that I was shocked at the prices for such work would be a drastic understatement. I understand it takes skill and the right materials to do a quality job, but I was completely unprepared for the numbers I saw. What should a job like this cost?

I'm asking for recommendations for an individual or company that does quality work at reasonable prices. Maybe I'm asking too much, but figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. Thanks.

[Gary WA]

Everything is costly today!!You can do it yourself, by practice-and study up on how its done! Nothing to it! Go for it! You will be proud of your finished product!!!

[lalkie]

I did my own woodgraining on a 38 ford partially restored. I used a napa base primer and india ink and a tooth brush then clear coat.. I thought it looked pretty good. You could try it on some metal to get practice. I cant seem to send a picture. my email is [email protected] contact me and I will send some pictures Larry

[mass A man]

I once saw a man dipping his moldings into a tank of water that had the light and dark "paint" swirled around floating on top of the water, he pulled the piece straight up through the mixture and it was a beautiful wood-grained effect that dries and perhaps he clear-coated it? I don't know if this is a paint-kit whereas we could buy it and do our "dipping". Perhaps you could investigate this process on the computer.

Some folks use a "comb" tool to wood-grain the top coat. I've done this and it came out fairly well, but hard to use comb around small areas and multi-level surfaces!

[Oldbluoval]

Watch the videos on this site. And, you can improvise on technique rather than buy kits.

https://woodgraining.com/videos/

As to professional pricing…consider how many pieces are in a town sedan. Each piece has to be refinished, painted, wood grained , cleared and polished. Many hours….
What per hour would you work for??
DIY

[TomInCologne]

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

alternative technology is 'water transfer printing'. This is done on plastic
interiour components, like making a plastic component look like a carbon fibre part. I am pretty sure you can get your dash look like real wood.


Not original but nevertheless interesting.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_transfer_printing

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

We do professional woodgraining in-house however this is not a solicitation for work but more of an explanation of the cost. Compare this to a vehicle's paint job. The actual painting of the vehicle is not very costly nor time consuming. It is the pre-paint work (-a/k/a bodywork) and the post-paint work (-a/k/a colorsanding & buffing) that is what makes the paint job costly. The same mindset applies for graining.

Applying the ink to each trim piece is no big deal IMHO. It is the work that many pieces need prior to the ink ever being applied. To do the job correctly, each trim piece needs to be media-blasted to clean metal. I have found that many pieces need minor straightening, or small dings removed, or tears around screw holes welded, or even extra holes filled before any paintwork is to begin. Then, many of these trim pieces require multiple applications of primer and sandings to make them smooth prior to applying a base. This takes time and requires products that are expensive.

Now this will likely be viewed as controversial however IMO, 20-30+ years ago it used to be really neat when a hobbyist took a wad of paper and a cut-down paintbrush and swirled on some paint to replicate his idea of woodgraining. This was fine prior to professional graining and/or kits becoming widely available because we as hobbyists really did not have a benchmark to compare these graining jobs to. We now know what Ford factory graining from the era is supposed to look like, -and the quality level of restoration work as a whole has risen where the expectation levels of areas such as woodgraining are much higher, ...especially if the job is to be outsourced by the restorer. Therefore the days of psychedelic-like woodgraining (-that doesn't even begin to resemble any species of wood known to man) on metal trim pieces that has imperfections (-unlike it would have been when manufactured) actually detracts significantly from what would be considered otherwise as a nice vehicle. If a hobbyist needs to save money, there are many areas of the prep work they need to do themselves prior to having the graining portion done. Providing each trim piece so the grainer only needs to apply the base, grain the piece, and then apply a single coat of clear will significantly reduce the costs which makes the job much more affordable and the end result of all the trim enhances the look of the entire vehicle.

[JayJay]

Well stated, Brent. It's always a treat when you dive into the details on what's actually necessary to do a credible job on something unusual that the rest of us don't really understand. I remember the newspaper technique from many years ago, but that won't hold muster today.

I too have a '30 Town Sedan under restoration that needs the woodgraining of the trim pieces. Your description of the prep work required pretty much matches what I had figured on being necessary (media blast, fill/sand/repair, prime, etc.) I'm thinking of purchasing the Grain It Technologies kit and teaching myself how to do it through trial and error. (The video on their website makes it look pretty straightforward, just I'm sure there's a learning curve). If there's anyone out there who has the kit (or at least the grain plate) and would like to sell it, please PM me.

JayJay

[Oldbluoval]

Grain-it sets up live demos at Hershey (or used to..haven’t been a few years). The lady demonstrating it makes it look very easy……and it isn’t that hard. It’s just takes practice, practice. Do it precisely their way and you’ll have good results. But not right out of the gate!

[1931 flamingo]

Juliano's still does it I believe. They are in CT.
Paul in CT

[Seth Swoboda]

Grain It, woodgraining.com

Buy the kit. Do it yourself. You can do a very nice job.

[chrs1961815]

Quite honestly there are several people/companies over charging out there imo. There are some prices for 1500 for just woodgraining, meaning you send them the parts primed and ready to go.

[eystein]

Originally Posted by Oldbluoval

Watch the videos on this site. And, you can improvise on technique rather than buy kits.

https://woodgraining.com/videos/

As to professional pricing…consider how many pieces are in a town sedan. Each piece has to be refinished, painted, wood grained , cleared and polished. Many hours….
What per hour would you work for??
DIY

I bought one of their kits and it worked very well. - And, I got to learn a new practical skill which is basically the better part of what I'm in the car hobby for

With a 1930 Town Sedan it should be the "stipple mahogany" pattern from Grain-It Technologies that you are going for. IMO that is one of the easiest patterns to lay down.

Some things that didn't work for me from their instructions/videos :

- The ink wipeoff - Since the base coat is slightly satin there would be a light stain of the base coat where I wiped off the ink. -I had to mask with fine wetordry paper both rolling into and out of the joint between roller strokes.

-The Lock-Down coat - Never understood the reason for that - Better to just let the ink get 2 or three weeks of good drying before applying clear.

Finally, when blending together roller strokes with the fine brush supplied in the kit. -After dipping the brush in ink you need to wipe the brush almost completely on a piece of paper in order for the lines to be fine enough.

Several practice pieces should be done. Not only for practice, but also to check that the base color/ink combination turns out as original.

Finally, the top clear coat should be satin gloss. Ford used lacquer which was not buffed out, so high gloss clear coat will not turn out as original.

[Bob Johnson]

At the last MAFCA national meet (2022 in Texas) I demonstrated a technique from an article in the May/June 1967 issue of The Restorer (12-1) using a sponge and toothpicks. Here is the results. It can also be found in Volume 2 of "How to Restore Your Model A" from MAFCA. Here is a windshield trim piece that I did for the demonstration.


Bob

[Dick Carne]

I went to one of Brent Terry's restoration sessions about 15 years ago or so, and one of the venders there was the folks from Grain-it-Technologies. While there are a few techniques that I have acquired over the years, it is a fairly simple, although tedious project. Since purchasing their kit back then, I have probably done close to 20 cars for friends, and the finished product is always quite rewarding. I'm not sure where I picked it up, but one of the processes that I have used is to go with a slightly darker ink "smear coat" once the wood grain has had a day or two to harden, and then smear this coat on and immediately wipe it off. This will fill in some of the light areas, blend the entire piece, and also aids immensely in covering up any imperfections. A couple of clear coats after this provides a piece that very closely resembles wood. Larger diameter rollers work better (at least for me) on longer pieces, and by slighly angling the roller, should cover an entire dash rail in close to two passes. Loading your roller across the short side of the plate will also allow you to get closer to straight corners, but doing so will then require blending two edges/joints.

Again, the process is not difficult, but does require patience. Rather than send your trim pieces to someone who does wood graining and paying their cost plus the shipping, I would instead pursue the alternative of using Grain-it-Technologies without hesitation. Should you make the decision to do so, and if I may be of any assistance, please let me know. Best wishes to you on this "fun" project.

[art ebeling]

I used the Grain It system and it is great. I used a toothpick as a brush to blend the grains together where the roller had stopped. After applying the ink I let it dry for two or three weeks before doing the smear coat as the applied ink woodgrain has a tendency to smear ruining the fine grain pattern. Wait another two or three weeks before applying the clear. Art

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Originally Posted by chrs1961815

Quite honestly there are several people/companies over charging out there imo. There are some prices for 1500 for just woodgraining, meaning you send them the parts primed and ready to go.

I am not trying to argue with you however in service work for a customer, I have learned over, and over, -and over again it is never just about doing the actual task. For example, these places that charge '$1,500.00 for just graining' also need to spend valuable (-unbillable) time unboxing the customer's pieces and label them, then spend time identifying and documenting any possible imperfections, then spend time documenting each piece prior to anything happening in case there is a discrepancy at a future date. Then after the 'just woodgraining' part has taken place, there is the precious time spent documenting (i.e.: photographing) and wrapping each and every piece for return shipping to ensure there won't be any damage claims on down the road. When you add-up all of the peripheral tasks that must be done to have a smooth operation, the time spent on those 'non-billable' tasks must be accounted for elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Dick Carne

I went to one of Brent Terry's restoration sessions about 15 years ago or so, and one of the venders there was the folks from Grain-it-Technologies.

Those were some really fun times, weren't they. Great memories.

.

[ampico-kid]

Thanks for all of the replies and advice. There's a lot of useful information here to mull over for sure. That's the great thing about posting questions here.....you get a tremendous variety of answers and opinions. You even get answers to questions you didn't know you had! Thanks to all of you who replied.

I do have some time yet before I decide what to do with the wood graining project. The car is presently in the shop having a new Burtz Block engine installed. I've got to take this one project at a time. This may even be a next Winter project as I don't think I'd want to strip all of the wood grain pieces off of the car to work on during the nice weather driving season. Thanks again to all. Bob

[ampico-kid]

Originally Posted by art ebeling

I used the Grain It system and it is great. I used a toothpick as a brush to blend the grains together where the roller had stopped. After applying the ink I let it dry for two or three weeks before doing the smear coat as the applied ink woodgrain has a tendency to smear ruining the fine grain pattern. Wait another two or three weeks before applying the clear. Art

Can you post larger images? Your photos are so small you can't see any of the details. Thanks.

[ampico-kid]

Originally Posted by 1931 flamingo

Juliano's still does it I believe. They are in CT.
Paul in CT

Juliano's no longer does wood graining.