So, I've put the PC-7 to my old cracked 1593 steering wheel and now I'm sanding the patches smooth. and I'm wondering: what is "ebonite"? Some kind of hard rubber-asphalt proto-plastic?

 

bowling ball material?

 

Yup, most bowling ***** are made of Ebonite.

Natural rubber can be processed to produce a range of materials with different hardness. It can be very soft like a rubber band, medium hard like tires, or very hard like Ebonite. Ebonite is natural rubber processed to be on the very hard end of the scale.

 

That would explain the feeling I have that I am sanding an old tire with 320 grit paper. Is the black coloring from lamp black? I heard lamp black was traditionally used in the vulcanizing process. Overall, steering wheel repair offers no reward, other than the satisfactory end of the task itself.

 

John,
my steering box has now been rebuilt. My friend at the truck garage said I should pick the weekend that I have time to rebuild the steeering wheel while he puts in the rebuilt steering box. He said bring it in on a ThursdayAM so he has 2 days in case he needs some parts or runs into trouble. In your estimation, will one weekend be enough time for me to rebuild the steering wheel: fill in cracks with JB Weld, file and sand, primer and paint, etc?

Is there anything else I should look out for or be prepared for?

thanks, abe

 

Abe, the time spent on the wheel will depend on the extent of cracking before you start. I bought a used one on ebay for thirty bucks that was a lot better than what I had. I'm glad I did it. When the wheel arrived, it looked like it only had a few small cracks at the joints between the spokes and the hub or outer wheel. The first thing I did was wash it up. I guess that the paint that was on the wheel was bridging other cracks, beacause new carcks were revealed. I filed the wider cracks so the crack width was large enough to push the PC-7 into. I had to carefully file off the excess PC-7, beacuse the ebonite is so much softer than the epoxy and I found myself removing more ebonite around the repair than I wanted to. This process was tedious at best. The ebonite is black. I mean really black. Working it is a messy job. So, I kept rinsing away the black dust with water. The water in turn would find its way into any unfilled hairline cracks (which seemed to increase in number the more I cleaned). Rather than repeat this very dirty process with more PC-7, I opted for filling the hairlines with spot putty. This is alot softer than the epoxy, so I didn't risk destroying the ebonite with more filing and hard sanding. I have repeated this process about four times now. Each time I cleaned the wheel I, would find more cracks. And each time, I had to wait for the water that I rinsed the black dust with the dry. Each time I thought that I had finished fgilling little cracks, I'd discover more. I'll apply more spot filler today, and see what it looks like. I'm at a point where I think I nice black leather wheel cover is the best way to put closure on this very dirty ordeal. As far as finish paint, I opted for a gloss black automotive rattle can. The can stated that the paint is fade resistant. I had read here that someone doing a wheel repair was going to use appliance paint. I'm nervous about possible fading. An appliance is unlikely to experience the quanity of UV that these steering wheels will. Anyway, there is alot of waiting for epoxy and putties to cure and dry, not to mention waiting for the rinse water to dry out of the cracks. (I used an electric hair dryer to force some drying, but it can't reach the water in the cracks.) I probably have eight hours of time into the repair, but it's spread out over a week. I probably got another two hours before I'm so sick of it that I call it good enough. I would say it is generally more than a weekend job.