Wood Graining in the 1939 Special

Hi Guys

A few months ago many of you provided me with info and photos about the woodgrain finish in the 1939 cars. Thanks to you all. Well we have finished the dash on my 1939 and the guys have the shop have finally installed it after much discussion and fiddling with the base coat colour and the final clear coat. Its my car andd I am kinda happy with how its turned out. Your thoughts on it are welcome and I have a thick skin. But after the argument and discussion that the family and I have in this matter I won't be changing it soon.

I also got a new spare for my car so if I run out of gas on the way home I have a back up plan. The spare look like is a 1940 model.

enjoy

Cheers

Andrew

I love it , classy look and is like your looking at a cheetah's fur coat "mesmerizing" .

I like it. Just my preference, but it's a little too "brown" for me. Overall very nicely done though.

I am just painting mine for now. I plan on eventually practicing myself on my spare parts.

Andrew, looks real good to me.

Ben

Looks great Andrew, enjoy!!

looks great

Looks great to me too. What is the colour of the body, it looks very close the Royal Maroon on my '41?

Keith

They do great work. No denying that Andrew! Out of interest though, what convinced you to go with a brown woodgrain as opposed to the red of the original? The brown does look quite classy as Buickkuhn says.

Cheers

Grant

Thanks Grant

I sent you a pm about another matter. Red vs brown. In some of the books I have read series 40 had walnut trim and big series had Mahogany trim. My experience with walnut veneer /trim is probably related to the early Jaguars that my brother owned and restored when I was a kid, so past experience colours our thoughts. Walnut generally is a brown/black timber on the gun stocks that I own. Also we are still arguing in the family about the colour of the interior trim, various shades of gray vs various shades of red If we end up with red upholstery then I think the seat colour can over intensify the colour on the dash. its difficult as the original finish has not survived on many cars and on those that it has translating the look from photos and allowing for natural ageing remains difficult.

Thanks guys for the kind comments and inputs , stay well and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year:)

Cheers

Andrew

Here in Aus, I've only run across 1 '39 with woodgraining.

All the others I've seen have the dash painted that maroon colour as per your steering column.

Maybe just a Holden/Special thing. The one I saw was on a Century.

Danny

Danny, Nice job, but it's too much like an oak or walnut finish. It should be towards maroon, as in mahogany. Even the so-called expert in Winter Haven, FL has too much brown in his finish. It is very art deco. The maroon of mahogany, mixed with the light tan of walnut. There is very little walnut mixed in except for on the glove box door which has a lot of walnut swirl in it. The badges on the closed car garnish moldings has a lot of walnut mixed in with the mahogany, and the straight lines are a dull gold, which sort of matches the walnut. I'm only ever seen one car where the wood grain was perfectly matched, and that (I'm not bragging) is on my sidemounted sedan. The convertible coupe is very good, but too brown if one wants to be absolutely right. I hate to come here and say so, because you are a very good forum friend to me, but....well just but

I have pics of a very original car that we tried to get as close to as possible. A green sedan belonging to a guy called Wayne. Some of you will know the car. Here's our dash......

Cheers

Grant

That looks right Grant, although it is a distant shot and it's a little hard to see all of the details.

Well Earl, you'd better come over and see it for yourself! You know you're always welcome!

Cheers

Grant