63 steering wheel color

I'm changing the interior color on my 63 from blue to black. Part of that plan is to restore and repaint the steering wheel. The original wheel is currently two tone blue. The darker blue is on the center, horn bar and extends out to the chrome rings on the actual wheel at the outer ends of the horn bar. The lighter blue color is really only at the upper and lower part of the wheel. To my eye, it looks like the designers were trying to visually invoke the steering yoke or control wheel of an airplane. The lighter blue tends to fade back and the more prominent dark blue makes it look more like the cut back control wheel of an airplane. I'd like to do the same combination when I re-do my wheel using black and silver. That said, all the steering wheels on cars with black interiors seem to have single color steering wheels. They are all black. Was there ever a two-tone sliver/black combination? Also, the gloss level on steering wheels seems greater than the rest of the painted portions of the dash and console. Is that true, or is it just greasy hands handling the wheel making it look more shiny? PRL

Does your car have the standard interior? I think that custom interior cars had a single color wheel and standard interior cars had the two tone wheel. This in only an observation that I've made but have not been able to confirm it. Having said that, I've never seen a two tone black steering wheel, only solid black.

Ed

Mine was standard and I'm rebuilding it that way, just a different color. It seems odd that the two tone wheel is on the standard and the single color is on the custom. Seems counterintuitive. I'm going to try it. The entire car is silver and black. When I'm done, the only things that won't be either silver or black will be the air cleaner and me sitting in it. Also, I'm not sure how to explain the gloss level on the wheel. Once I paint the repaired wheel, I probably will hit it with a coat of gloss clear. All the wheels I've seen are slightly shinier than the other painted parts in the cabin. PRL

I've always thought that steering wheels from that era were molded-in-color, not painted. Maybe some research on steering wheel refinishing techniques might be helpful. On my '63, (all black wheel w/white custom leather interior) I used some epoxy to fill in a hairline crack behind one side of the horn bar's outer edge, and then feathered in multiple coats of Duplicolor gloss before polishing with it out Simichrome or Scratch-X to blend in the repair. So far so good.

All the wheels I've seen are slightly shinier than the other painted parts in the cabin. PRL

Could be one of two things. The epoxy in which it's cast has a natural shine to it or the oils from your hands keep it buffed. Either way, I think a two tone black/silver wheel would look good.

JZ-It's definitely molded in color from the factory. When restoring and changing color, my only choice is to fix it, then repaint it. Mine is pretty bad, but I've done it before on a Ford and it came come out very well. There are lots of kits out there, but I did mine with my own set of potions and techniques: Pull the wheel and take off any horn related trim parts. Use a Dremel to aggressively ream out the cracks. Use JB Weld to fill them. Shape and sand until you are blue in the face. Put the wheel on a stud in a vise so you can spin it and get an even coverage front and back. Paint it about ten times. Hit it with clear. The only tricky part I foresee with the Riv are the small chrome ring trim pieces on the actual wheel. My wheel is distorted and shrunken so those slots are way too big. I'll need to get inventive there. PRL