I made a gearknob !

[healeyneil]

As I can't get on with big projects I thought I'd have a go at making a gearknob. 
I cut 2 pieces of 35mm thick timber - I think its teak, it came from an occasional table that was destined for my log burner.
Drilled through one and chiselled a recess for a nut.




I made a temporary lathe



which allowed me to turn the wood down until the shape was right. I used a course sanding disc on my angle grinder, then sandpaper.
A mini dremel cut the recess for the bezel on the top which I nicked from a wine stopper



Lots of sanding and lots of coats of varnish ( left over floor varnish ) and hey presto !





If I did it again I could do it better, as I made a couple of mistakes.
When I took the last two photos, my wife asked me what I was doing, so I told her I was taking photos of my knob 😀 Will I ever grow up ?

[healeyneil]

Photo 3 should have been a photo of the wine stopper

[bbh]

That's impressive!

[dougie]

Nice !

Will it match the steering wheel?

[healeyneil]

of course ! I bought a rather nice Nardi wheel not that long after I bought the Jamaican.
the gearknob got some wood dye before its varnish

[dougie]

Sweet!

[frankenhealey]

A short story about woodrim wheels

Once upon a time in a century far, far away I had a part-time college job being an accident/breakdown recovery driver. One Christmas Eve we were having the garage Christmas 'party'. That was me, the boss and three hairy-eared mechanics. We were probably supping Watney's Red Barrel out of a Party Seven and eating Twiglets and possibly the height of sophistication, little bits of cheese and pineapple chunks on cocktail sticks. I was probably hating it as being at college the mechanics had nicknamed me 'Brains'. The phone rang and it was the police. There had been an RTA on the local bit of dual-carriageway where a car had t-boned the Armco and could we come and pick up the wreck? They thought it was trailerable. The boss looked at us all, it was freezing cold outside and p1ssing down, the three mechanics (Curly, Moe and Larry as I had nicknames for them too) muttered about getting home to the wives and kids as it was Christmas Eve after all and therefore Brains could do it

I coupled up the Land Rover Series 3 wrecker to the recovery trailer and chugged off into the gathering night behind the mighty 2.25 litre NA Rover diesel.

Got to the scene and there was a Sunbeam Alpine soft top with major front end damage and it wasn't going on the trailer so I told the two Traffic cops that I'd have to go back and drop the trailer off and come back and suspend tow it to the yard. They were not happy at having to wait another half hour in the rain and anyway there was a party back at the canteen and they were due to come off shift so "let's get it on the trailer and we'll help you sonny boy" sort of thing. With one wheel on the Sunbeam at right angles to the other I felt they were being a bit optimistic so coupled up the trailer winch and started dragging. I asked one if he could hold what was left of the steering wheel straight while I wound the manual winch. He was not keen for he had looked closely at the wheel so he, amazingly for a copper offered to wind while I 'steered'.

These were the days of static belts and God knows if the driver was wearing it or not but the force of the crash had broken the woodrim wheel on both sides and he/she had left most of their palms on the spikes of broken wood.

The mummified remains were still there when the insurance assessor rocked up about a month later because we'd had to throw a tarpaulin over the cockpit as the local crows were getting inside the soft top and snacking on the bits.

[healeyneil]

Too true. My Nardi wheel at least has a solid aluminium rim that the wood is attached to. Also, I no longer have the Healey spear !



first fit of the Corsa electric power steering bits 😀

[dougie]

Nice, please post some detail photos when complete.