Recovering woodgrain on trim pieces

My 96 RMWoody has a damaged trim piece on the right front wheel arch. The trim is repairable and I have also found a replacement but the wood grain is flaking off on both pieces. Is there any way to recover the wood grain on these trim pieces?

I saw a listing on eBay a couple weeks ago from a guy selling a whole left front fender trim set, listing said he restores Roadmaster trim. I sent him a question via ask seller function but he did not respond and the auction has ended.

Anyone know who the guy is?

Has anyone recovered their woody trim?

Never heard of anyone who refinishes them back to woodgrain. I just spray painted mine with Rustoleum 7771 "Sand" it matches pretty well. I then just ended up stripping the paint all together and polishing them.

Cadet57 wrote:

Never heard of anyone who refinishes them back to woodgrain. I just spray painted mine with Rustoleum 7771 "Sand" it matches pretty well. I then just ended up stripping the paint all together and polishing them.

What did you use to strip the paint? Sounds like an option, I have access to a good set of buffing wheels and rouge.

Any photos of the car with the polished trim?

How to:

https://gmlongroof.4umer.com/paint-and-body-f30/trim-removal-and-polish-from-other-site-t508.htm?highlight=polished+trim

Polished trim....

Wow that looks great! I may have to do that.

Thanks for the link to the removal thread too, this site is a wealth of info.

On my first 91 RMW I replaced the flaking wood trim with 3M DiNoc in the same grain as the panels, looked good.




on my secound RMW I buffed it up, and thats where Tim got his inspiration




that wagon later became the sedan nosed woody the trim on the front fenders was custom made


the trim on my white 91 has started to peel and flake so.......

Pat (Buickestate) is the man. I did mine after seeing Pats and being sick of looking at peeling trim. It is the consensus that it may not look so good on the lighter colored wagons though.

One of the best Mod's I ever did. I have a full set of polished trim that I did for another member. He decided (after keeping it for several months, he did not want it) I would like to sell it. Let me know if you are interested.

Tim

Here is the last link on the subject. I painted mine Satin Nutmeg, but love the polished look too.

https://gmlongroof.4umer.com/wagon-general-discussion-f1/wood-grain-side-trim-t1657.htm?highlight=side+trim

jeffracer wrote:

My 96 RMWoody has a damaged trim piece on the right front wheel arch. The trim is repairable and I have also found a replacement but the wood grain is flaking off on both pieces. Is there any way to recover the wood grain on these trim pieces? Has anyone recovered their woody trim?

I did. I used the stripeman kit - www.stripeman.com - Trim Molding Cover Up 20"x60" Code: 589-2048 Price: $99.00

This is the only fairly closeup pic I could find of it:



I think it came out well, people never comment on it, so I take that as they were either trying to be nice or it looked factory enough not to stand out.

- J

How close was the stripeman color to the original wood grain on the factory trim? I was hoping to only recover the one damaged piece as all the other pieces are perfect (I know it's not likely).

Thanks to all, 3 good solutions, recover, paint or polish and all are under consideration.

jeffracer wrote:

How close was the stripeman color to the original wood grain on the factory trim? I was hoping to only recover the one damaged piece as all the other pieces are perfect (I know it's not likely).

When the whole car is done it looks fine, but you won't be happy with just covering one piece. It is more glossy than the factory trim. It also has an interesting effect of shifting colors under different lighting. Sunlight looks normal, under flourescent lighting it shifts towards green and sodium lamps turn it pink. It actually looks pretty neat and its kind of a interesting feature on an otherwise boring white woody, but as you're trying for an exact match I wouldn't recommend it.

Actually, you should have told us earlier the rest was perfect. That is pretty rare these days, most of our cars have several, if not all pieces in need of attention. The recommendations will change once people know that.

Tell the board _exactly_ what two pieces you need and there is a good chance someone may have one or both in serviceable condition tucked away in their parts collection. Most of us stock up on trim whenever we can find it.

- J

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

Pat (Buickestate) is the man. I did mine after seeing Pats and being sick of looking at peeling trim. It is the consensus that it may
not look so good on the lighter colored wagons though.

One of the best Mod's I ever did. I have a full set of polished trim that I did for another member. He decided (after keeping it for
several months, he did not want it) I would like to sell it. Let me know if you are interested.

Tim

Interesting. I was sort of thinking of polishing the trim our white wagon. But you say that many people didn't like the result?
Do you have any pics?

ETA: How much would you want for the full set of polished trim?

JaySS wrote:

Tell the board _exactly_ what two pieces you need and there is a good chance someone may have one or both in serviceable condition tucked away in their parts collection. Most of us stock up on trim whenever we can find it.

Right front fender wheel arch piece only.

This is a low mileage Arizona car and was garaged most of its life so the trim is in great condition.

The previous owner scraped against something and just flattened and scraped the arched piece.
I have found a good undented replacement but the wood is peeling off thus the reason for the thread.