THE WHEEL HAS A PATINA NEW COAT

I just couldn't resist painting the wheel, even though I'm a ways off from having the car built. I decided that since I'm going with red as a primary interior color that I'd try to incorporate both the eggplant exterior color and red interior colors into the wheel. So I painted the wheel red, let it dry, then followed with a coat of a wine color. Once it dried, I used various grits of sandpaper to patina the wheel. As usual my wife and son rolled their eyes, thinking I was ruining the damn thing. I think it come out looking pretty damn cool. And at the end of the day, isn't the point for me to love it? Once I had arrived at the patina I liked, I hit it with several coats of gloss clear, and sanded with very fine paper to keep it nice and smooth. The overall effect is that the wheel looks as if has wear. But it feels nice and smooth at the same time. Once I popped the wheel horn hub on it, I was happy.

FINAL STEERING WHEEL

I just finished the clean up work on this wheel which was custom squared by fellow HAMB Member  DOGDISHDELUXE and had the backside "knuckles" smoothed out. This is the third wheel I've purchased from him, if that's any indication how much I dig his work. This one started life as a 1961 Chevy Belair wheel. I "v-grooved" out the half a dozen hairline cracks, used JB Weld two-stage putty-style epoxy  to build it back up, then did a course of sanding using 100-grit, 200, 320, 400 and 600 grit sandpaper. I fixed the last few imperfections with two-stage JB Weld, the kind that is sold in squeeze tubes.

The center cap is a '52 Buick horn button which I found on E-bay. It was in nice shape when it arrived. I incorporated the Buick center car onto the Chevy's existing horn bar and luckily it fit perfectly. A quick pass over the chrome pieces with Naval Jelly, followed by some metal polish and viola -- she's prepped. I'll end up painting the wheel to match the interior colors, which will be metallic red, dark eggplant metallic, or pearl white. We'll decide that part later.

COLOR SAMPLE AND HORN CAP

Drove one of these yesterday just for shits and grins. Underpowered, but fun, and 37 MPG. As I was at the dealership, I checked out the available colors and came across this one. As close to what I envision for the color of the T as anything I've seen on a modern car. No, I won't likely be buying a Scion IQ. But I'm not above stealing the paint color. It's 2012 Scion IQ Deep Amethyst Metallic Clearcoat (9AH).

Another great color, as seen on this Mercury Cougar is Ford's 

1996-1998 Thistle Metallic from PPG:

Ford's Thistle metalic by PPG

One a side note, I purchased this vintage Buick horn button for Lily. I've got a wheel coming.