VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 1941 special deluxe woodgrain dash

those are nice pics of the flint meet. keep em coming.
i wonder how many of you 41 special deluxe lovers know just how that dash got such a beautiful wood graining. it was to me anyway, quite an interesting process that might surprise you.
the dash started out as a flat piece of steel, painted that pretty pinkish beige color, of the bottom dash half, standard steering wheel, and lower portions of window reveals. then they punched the holes, for the clock, speedo, glove box, intrument cluster, ashtray, cigar lighter, accessory switch holes, and light switch hole.
then thru a process they called either dynex or dynox, i forget the spelling, which was a photo engraving sort of deal. they put the woodgrain, which didn't have those pretty striations in it yet on one side, and then thru some kind of mirror imaging they put it on the other side.
then, they put this still flat piece of steet, now painted and holed, and got that woodgrain color on the top half, in a rolling press, which turned this flat steel into the shape you know it as, a dashboard, and wow, in that rolling process all of a sudden you got those lines in the woodgrain, that look like striations, and it is what makes it so hard to duplicate
by hand.i only know of one fella, in phx, who did it one time,
and it was a beauty in a friends hand now. it was the closest to original i ever saw anyone do. just check out the woodgrain inside the glove box and you can see the rolling of the grain.
amazing process considering it was 1941. kinda seemed awfully complicated, but then remember they did it with machines. if it took more than 6 minutes total for each dash, i would be
surprised. probably less time than it took you to read this
post.
hope it helps educate you more on your 41 special deluxe.
richie

Thanks, Richie. Interesting information. There's a company in Winter Haven, FL that makes a kit for woodgraining and I'm told it works well. I think the name of the company is "Grainit" of something like that.
Charlie

Yes, interesting info.

Charlie, Good tip. Altho it appears you left out the last word in their name. Grain-It Technologies.

LINK to Grain-It Technologies.

Lots of previous discussion/posts here in Chat about woodgraining. Anyone interested should try to do a "search."

Bill.

Hello!!!....Am I missing something here????? Why would some people go to great expense to imitate something that was made to be a cheap imitation of something real?????
Wood Graining was applied to things like dashboards (and cheap breadboxes) to imitate the REAL WOOD, trim, and construction of dashboards and trim in high priced expensive car's and coaches.

Model T fords had a REAL WOOD dashboard...But Folks that considered themselves "Too Good" to drive a model T Ford said "I would not be caught dead in that "working mans car" I am going to buy that other car...the one with the beautiful fake wood grain dashboard.

I remember as a young kid back in the early 1950's when the self proclaimed "better than thou" lady next store to our house invited all the neighbors in to see her new kitchen That she just had "updated"! She was especially proud of her laminated hard maple countertop (that used to look like a high end bowling alley) that now was covered in Green Formica. All of the ladies present gasped in delight and envy.
I am sure their husbands heard about that "Modern Kitchen" for a long time (Why cant we have one like that)"we are soo behind the times" I guess what I am saying is get your values in order and dont get caught up in all the BS. Things are not always what they appear to be.....ED

I would like to know if the dashboard patterns all turned identical with this process.

Hi Ed,
I am a little confused? are you saying that if a certain car came with simulated woodgrain, that the owner if thay have plans for a restoration that they should not re- create it as original?? Or am I smoking some funky stuff??
Thanks
Mike....

Richie,
I am familiar with the process you have described. I have a filmstrip or photos that show this tucked away somewhere? If I can locate I will post pictures. Here is a photo of one of my unrestored coupes with its original woodgrained dash.

Here is a picture of my Fleetline dash"

old 216,
thanks for the interest. i cannot honestly answer your question, wish i could. if they weren't exact, they were pretty darned close to it from the dashes i have seen in my lifetime. maybe 1941 special deluxe can. he is a fountain of
information on 41 chevies.
thanks again
richie

mike,
it would be interesting to see if someone had a spare dash laying around, in need of some help, but with a little something left on it, if clear ccat laquer were sprayed onto the old woodgrain.
if there were something left,it just might bring it back out.
if that worked, it might be like the old mercurochrome trick on the clock center, in a very clean q tip thin coated, no drips.
course maybe aindshield moulding, or door window reveal might be a good source to give clear laquer a shot with, if those items would have otherwise gone to the trash.
would love to have someone report back on that idea. son't forget to put enough on thin coats at a time, and rub it out properly, but very gently, just in case.
richie
ps i am afraid i didn't understand what ed was talking about, did you? how did we get from wood grained dashes to melamine kitchen stuff?????

Mike...Question #1....NO...All I am saying is be aware of what you really have to begin with. To me a good restoration of fake woodgrain is the same as a bad restoration of fake woodgrain...It's still fake woodgrain...As the old saying goes "You cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear."
Question #2 I hope so....It's good for your head.

A while back there was an article in the G&D about a black 41 conv that was restored by a gentleman and his son out in the midwest somewhere. They did all the work. The dash - as well as the rest of the car - looked really good. It was wood-grained and looked like the original, as far as I could tell.

Anyhow, either they posted the source of their wood-graining or I called them. Can't remember now but the jest of it was they used Grain-It Technologies (accurately amended from my previous post, thanks to Bill).

Maybe someone else can commet on the process. I've not used it but do intend to in the future.

Ed, We tend to do the best we can to get the dash close to original looking. Nothing wrong with that is there?

Charlie

BTW: As I understand it, the 41 conv in the AACA Mueseum has a "borrowed" dash in it. That's a testiment as to what lengths some of us are willing to go in order to achive best possible results.

Jim asked me to post the information below: There were pictures also. I still working on how to send them.
Thanks for the information, Jim,
Charlie



Woodgrain dash
From:
Irene & Jim Ruble <jiruble@fidnet.com>
View Contact
To: Charleshill1934@yahoo.com

2 Files View Slideshow Download All
1941 Chevy Interior.jpg (127KB); Speedometer Conversion 1941 Chevy.jpg (844KB)
Charlie: I am Jim Ruble VCCA #01273 JAR41 on Chatter II. I enjoy your literary essays on Chatter. You are good with words. Keep it up.
I don;t know how to post pictures on Chatter posts. I am enclosing a picture of my '41 dash that I had done by a local house painter. It looks as good as the pictures on Chatter. I saw a metal house door he painted and asked if he had ever done a car dash and window moldings. He said not but he could. I had the dash and moldings off during the total restoration . I don't know what process he used but it does look good. Color and design. I gave him a picture in a car magazine and he went from there. I gave him the "pink" paint from Chevy of the '40s but he mixed the rest.
A good painter can do the dash.
Please post this picture on Chatter II with the information. Thanks JIM

BTW: I have included my speedometer conversion picture I put a 3:54 ring gear and pinion from a 1953 Chevy powerglide in my '41. It had the original 4:11. I had a sign shop make the film to put on the speedometer that shows the difference in speed. Gene Schneider helped me do the speed conversion. Gene also walked me through the rear end conversion. That is one fine intelligent man and so good to help novices like me.

Dear All,

Reference has already been made to the company Grain-It-Technologies. I bought their starter kit about a year or two ago and did all the garnish moldings for my 38 coupe. As someone pointed out, even their starter kit is not cheap (I think it was about $300), BUT I must say that the results are very impressive.

The tricky thing to replicate in wood graining is obviously the individual grains peculiar to each sort of wood. That's where the expense from Grain It comes in--they have reproduced plates engraved with various types of grains/patterns. You spread an ink on that plate, then pick up the pattern on a roller (made of a special rubber/poly surface [again a fairly expensive material]}, then transfer it to your piece, which has already been primed and painted with the appropriate base coat color. After it dries, clear coat is applied. I must say that mine came out very nicely. I had spoken with a few guys who do professional wood graining and for the amount they would have charged for each piece, I was able to pick up the kit. I figured that I could do not only my pieces but if I ever wanted, I could do some others by picking up the right plates, etc. and recoup my investment that way. Also, during the course of my work, I contacted the company and they were extremely helpful, answering all my questions via email.

I have no connection or interest in the company--just reporting my experience with their product.

Thanks,

Jim

Oh good, so you can buy a kit with the graining patterns and all. That is good to know.

It seems that there is probasbly nothing out there to produce the mirror image that was talked about. The mirror image grain was pretty popular on dressers etc. during the 30s.

May I add to the obvious experiences of all the excellent posts.

My 41 has a great looking, restored wood grain dash. I'll try to post a pic, but it shows a "depth" and color I believe what the orig. dash looked like.

Additionally, Jim Ruble is a great guy, a generous member and part of the reason my 41 looks good! Thanks again Jim!!

Oops, can't get the pic to load....I'll try another path.

Enjoy the ride,
Michael41