tighe

Yup, sad news, good idea to post here. Robert has helped me with his online videos, and in person several times when I lived in New Mexico. In all of my interactions with him he's been selfless and generous. I reached out directly about donations before the GFM was setup and he said Zelle, Pay Pal, and CashApp also work. Link to the GFM setup for him here. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-robert-diy-with-his-urgent-family-needs?member=20367533&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

A year or two ago I bought an old OEM wood trimmed steering wheel, to match the rest of the walnut trim interior in my car. The car did not originally come with wood trim, I've been adding it slowly over time. Fast forward a year later, and the wood on the wheel has delaminated and begun cracking off. Running my hand over the steering wheel started to feel like bamboo shoots under the fingernails. I peeled the rest of the wood off knowing it was not going to be salvaged, and started to look into options. There are plenty of professional services for rewrapping, but I just couldn't justify spending so much on it. Estimates were $400 or more, and my car would be out of service for several weeks. So I looked more closely to see if in fact this is something I could tackle myself, having never done this type of work before. Turns out it really wasn't that hard to swap from wood to "alcantara". Photo from when the walnut trim was starting to delaminate: Close up to show substrate underneath wood trim: Once the wheel was removed, the wood was removed piece by piece, and I laid out the micro suede. The trick here is that the top piece of micro suede needs to be crescent or U-shaped, not a rectangle as shown in the photo. I didn't take a photo of this, however. The existing leather on the wheel was carefully warmed up and removed, without cutting any of the stitching. The micro suede was then glued using leather glue, while being careful not to get the glue on the existing leather. While the glue was drying, I wrapped the micro suede with tape to get some pressure on it. The tape was backwards (sticky side out) so that I didn't start pulling up the micro suede when removing the tape. The next step was to do any final trimming of the micro suede, tuck in the edges, etc, and then glue the leather back in its original place. The same process was then used for the leather - the tape was wrapped sticky side out, then another layer was wrapped sticky side in (normal orientation) to really get some pressure on the leather while it dried. I'm sure other methods could be used (saran wrap?) but this worked for me, and the leather and micro suede all dried flat. The last step was to remove all the tape once the glue dried, and then clean up any areas in need of attention. Overall it came out great, especially considering the low material cost. The micro suede also is a very good match to the R seats in the car. I can take more pics if needed of any details.

Wow. Beautiful. Reminds me of a Vitus.

What a welcome surprise! Psyched to have your updates to look forward to!

Awesome. I used to frequent the Herreshoff Museum when I was in undergrad. Incredible place. You have good taste!

Very nice, even more beautiful than I imagined! I just took out our little 13' Mellonseed skiff with my oldest kid for the first time the other day. It was a blast. What are the details of your boat?

What a beautiful boat. Any shots of her under sail? A lot of classic lines in this picture...

When you're all done, toss it up on BaT! https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1980-fiat-x1-9-12/

Obviously it needs 33's and a lift!

The similarities between the two posts above...pretty cool.

Good lord that's pretty...

I love my Flir camera and have used it similarly. https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/coolant-temperature-after-engine-shut-down.1022435/#post-11317859

Excellent. Looking forward to some fresh inspo!

Thanks for the info. These are actually OEM Saab wheels from a 9-3 Aero, see photo. Saab makes some nice looking wheels - I like these too.

I've spent entirely too long thinking about Volvos...