Thanks to BoostnBenz and his DIY pages I have started refinishing the wood in my 126.

Here are some pictures of the wood in clamps right after I finished stripping it. The whole stripping process took 18 hours with 9 coats! I had to glue some loose pieces, but everything looks good. Just got a coat of stain on this morning.

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1983 Mercedes 300SD
1987 Mercedes 300SDL
2001 VW Passat 2.8 AWD
2007 OM642 Jeep WK 4x4

I used the same DIY instructions to do the cracked console wood on my 300SD and It turned out great. The cherry stain matched the original very closely.
The stripping process takes a long time because the finish on the wood is almost like a plastic coat. Refinishing takes a week because you have to apply multiple coats of spar varnish with a long dry time between coats.

The rest of the wood was much easier. When you are refinishing wood trim, you only have to strip the pieces that are cracked. If you have any pieces that are not cracked (but are milky or discolored) you can save time by wet sanding each piece with 2000 grit and polishing with an old sock and some polishing compound. I used 3M Imperial Microfinishing compound followed by 3M foam polishing Pad glaze that was leftover from when I painted my 230 SL. The glove compartment door took about 15 minutes and is now as bright as new.

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Tom Hughes
St. Louis
84 300SD
92 300D
86 300SDL

Been considering the same thing myself.....but my woodworking skills are not on par with my metal working skills.

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
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1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

I was able to block sand all the clear finish off without sanding through the Zebrano vaneer! The clear bright finish MB used maybe urethane, and is hard has a rock!

I desided not to stain, but instead, 8 coats of Epifanes high gloss marine varnish. It's much lighter and looks more like teak!

I'll put a couple more coats on this winter.

BB

Tom,

Did you say the haze in the wood is easily sanded / compounded out? Did you still have good finish underneath. I guess the concept I'm thinking of is oxidized paint, the damaged layer can be removed and still have good color and surface below.

Thanks,
Chuck

If in fact the original factory clear is 2 part urethane, and I believe it is, pure urethane's do not buff to shine very well. Three part urethane's are a little more forgiving but still I doubt you can yeild a really nice glossy finish by buffing.

You may try buffing, but multi part urethanes are so very hard that even compounding through several micron stages ending with super ultra fine wheel mark remover will be marginal at best! I know this based from a professional stand point.

In your case, I would use a foam brush, or badger, or good china bristle brush, a good quality marine grade varnish, that may include a urethane single part base, use alcohol to remove any wax, and a dust free environment. You may apply two or three coats over the original factory urethane finish, pre sanded of course, 320 grit and above is OK.

BB

My glove compartment door was really hazy and milky looking from the sun. I figured that I did not have anything to lose by "color sanding" it because if it didn't work out I could go through the long process of stripping and varnishing that i had just done on the console.
I used the compounds that I had left over from painting my SL a year earlier(with DuPont Chromabase and Chromaclear) and thought that since the coating on the wood was a urethane it would work about as well.
When you colorsand a Chromaclear you do the final polishing in two stages. You first use the microfinishing compound (3M part # 06011) in a circular motion to polish out the fine scratches left by the 2000 grit paper and then you use the polishing pad glaze (3M part # 05996) to give it a perfect shine. With a car you use an orbital sander with a wool polishing pad on the large areas and a sock (the underside of a white sock which is like terrycloth) and a lot of elbow grease) The wood pieces are small so you have to do them the hard way with the sock and elbow grease. I also colorsanded and buffed out the spar varnish on the console the same way and it looks great too.
The botttom line is that it works great if you use the right stuff.

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Tom Hughes
St. Louis
84 300SD
92 300D
86 300SDL

Forgive my ignorance, but where can I find the DIY article you guys are refering to? I've been hoping for a while to do something about the foggy/cracked console, so I would love to see what it entails. I'm new here so I don't know how to find my way around ... could someone point me to this article?

Midway down the page: http://207.210.95.34/~boostd/

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The Golden Rule

1984 300SD (bought new, sold it in 1988, bought it back 13 yrs. later)

Thank you. This is awesome. I am assuming this particular article would be applicable to the console of a 124, which also uses zebrano?

I should think so, I don't know why not? I believe all MB's built in the eighties used urethane clear coats on their wood finishes. I didn't read the how to posts, as I have my own technique of refinishing by hand that I would challange the best to equal! Chemecals may remove finish materials great, but it also does a number on the very thin wood vaneer by bleaching natural colors out of the wood and staining new ones in! And speaking of stain, hardware store stains applied just makes the wood look dead and lifeless, but with a ton of clear gloss finish covering over, they sure will shine! BB

What is your technique? I'm interested in alternatives, as I want to consider all options before jumping into the project. I probably won't take it on until spring, but want to weigh out my options. Is there a better way, then?

Why can't i open that site?

One thing I would not use is a metal clear on wood. The material is way too hard for wood. All urethanes are not created equal.

I've always wondered what the clear on MB wood was formulated. I also believed that it is a 2k urethane myself. That is one car coating I have no experience with.

On stripping wood: there is a product called Peelaway 7 that is extremely effective at removing paint w/o damaging the wood underneath. The material is from Dumond Chemical and is sold in SW stores. Now, there are numerous variations of Peelaway--Peelaway 1, Peelaway 6, etc. You want #7 because it will not raise the grain or damage the wood. It is not caustic. It will not raise the grain. It is also quite powerful. It will remove 2k epoxy.

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