I am currently involved in refurbishing the wood in my MK5. It is original but had some pockets of lifting veneer where time and moisture have done their damage. I have been able to salvage most of it but have had to completely strip the walnut veneer off the upper door rails as it was just too far gone and had suffered badly from previous attempts at refurbishment by unknown Canadian persons which included enthusiastic use of sandpaper.

The other night while doing some basic veneer repairs I grabbed the micrometer and measured some old [removed] and new veneer. It all measured in terms of 20 to 25 thousandths of an inch. I.e. 1/50 to 1/40 of an inch or in decimals .020 to .025 inches. Pretty thin isn’t it? The moral of the story here is don’t use sandpaper to remove old lacquer and varnish on Jaguar woodwork Paint strippers or acetone are better options for that job.

I had another problem while spraying some of the MK5 timber. I kept getting “fisheyes” in some panels even though they had been thoroughly cleaned with acetone and prepsol cleaner. This fisheye denotes a reaction between silicones or oils in the timber and the lacquer I was spraying and appears as a spot where the paint retreats from the surface leaving a hole in the finish. It is a common problem in the automotive spray painting trade.

I asked club member Ben Stafford who is a bit of a giru on timber if he had any ideas as to how I could beat the problem. He suggested it was most likely due to silicon products similar to “Armourall” having been used on the old timber and penetration having been made due to cracks in the old finish. He suggested use of an additive used in the motor trade and generally known as “ anti silicon drops”. I obtained some but it was not cheap at $8 for a 30-ml bottle. However it only requires 2 to 3 drops per litre of paint and it did work as advertised.

Ben has also discovered another source of burr walnut veneer on the northside of the Brisbane area. It is Veneer and Timber products, 28 Kremzo Road Strathpine. On the south side burr walnut veneer is available from Sharp Plywood in Wacol.