'69 through '73 Steering Wheels - Wood, or Plastic?

[kats]

My pleasure SpeedRoo !

 I remember the article “ simulated wood “ . 
Now one thing came up in my mind , this 蟹カマ ( simulated crab meat ) . This is so popular food in Japan . It has been continuously better and better, very tasty and I am so surprised it’s quality.

But I can’t say this is crab meat because it is made from minced cod . No crab meat at all.

I can’t say our steering wheel is simulated wood . I see there is wood . I call our steering wood . 
 

Kats

[HS30-H]

7 hours ago, kats said:

Hi Alan, I show this before you do .

From a サービス周報(Service bulletin) 昭和44年11月 ( November 1969 )

Yes Kats, you beat me to it. The Z-1 Service Shuho was my next card...

 

Instead I'll show another Japanese market sales brochure, this time the late 1971 large format booklet that introduced the L24-engined HS30, HS30-S and HS30-H models alongside the already available L20A-engined S30 and S30-S models and the S20-engined PS30 and PS30-SB models, giving a seven model lineup at that time.

Again, a light-coloured rim (better for photos?) and described (No.16) as 'WOOD RIM STEERING WHEEL'.

 

[RIP260Z]

23 hours ago, HS30-H said:

Looking more closely at the CSP311's wheel, it does indeed look very similar to the rim type used on the S30s. I saved this photo from the Silvia that sold in Australia last year, and which shows some partial de-lamination (sun damage?) of the wheel rim which is quite revealing I think:

I harvested images of that Silvia too. What is notible is how the S30 and CSP wood changes colour over the years, the CSP especially is light in colour/shade (in link below) and then becomes darker through sun/heat/sweat/grease.. The CSP, as far as I am aware, only originally came in a light colour of wood, so this could affect what the original tree species was to start with, the same as with the S30..?.

https://csp311.net/publicity-and-miscellaneous-media-広報およびその他のメディア/224-2/

 

Edited August 10, 2022 by RIP260Z
added bit

[HS30-H]

A couple of extra comments from the Bring-a-Trailer auction that I think are worth saving with a screenshot.

"...simulated wood, not real wood."

As the old saying goes, 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'...

 

 

[dutchzcarguy]

As i have my own made wheel in the pic on left... I've seen the stuff where the original wheel was made of and it was damn dangerous sharp those pieces i took off of the 1971 wheel..

If i remember correctly those 3 spokes of the wheel where welded directly to the ring of 6,3mm thickness.. (i did this in 2007) 

I always knew that it was made of sort of wood"powder" and a adhesiv..  what was put in a mold and looks / feels like wood but is not really shaped wood like my own made wheel out of 12 pieces.

Hope (I didn't read it all) that i'm right because i really think that's the stuff on the wheel.. 

I could shout: ...

Fake! PLASTIC!!  hahaha 

 

[HS30-H]

51 minutes ago, dutchzcarguy said:

If i remember correctly those 3 spokes of the wheel where welded directly to the ring of 6,3mm thickness.. (i did this in 2007) 

The 'hoop' on my 4/70 steering wheel - as seen in the photos on the first post of this thread - is mild steel bar and measures at 7mm.

6.3mm seems a strange - non-standard - size? I would imagine it being far more likely that they would use a readily available standard size, no?

59 minutes ago, dutchzcarguy said:

I always knew that it was made of sort of wood"powder" and a adhesiv..  what was put in a mold and looks / feels like wood but is not really shaped wood like my own made wheel out of 12 pieces.

I don't know where this talk about wood "powder" and even "sawdust" comes from. There is an easily-observed grain and structure to the wood material used. That grain follows the shape of the wheel circumferentially. There are no readily-seen end joins. In a way it is rather like wool, where short strands of carded wool are spun together to make a continuous thread. The wood fibre used here seems to have been processed in something of that nature. 

Yes, it is not a traditional wood-rim wheel in the way that your custom-made version is (we have already covered that) but it IS wood.

[dutchzcarguy]

21 hours ago, HS30-H said:

6.3mm seems a strange - non-standard - size? I would imagine it being far more likely that they would use a readily available standard size, no?

I remember that i ordered for a 6,5 mm mill-bit then i would have a little room for the 2 component glue between the steel and the wood. (As my wheel had the open holes in the spokes it was a later wheel.)  The rim was 6,3 mm that i remember distinctly.. this is 1/4 inch and a common seen thickness i think.

21 hours ago, HS30-H said:

There is an easily-observed grain and structure to the wood material used.

Alan, i don;t agree with you.. i don't mind but i just don't agree.. If i look at the first "wood"picture in this topic at the lower part and make a magnification i can clearly see that the grain lays all over the place.. it's has many different directions. 

How was this wheel made so fast without hours of sanding and stuff?  Mould is the answer i think?  (Btw.. my wheel took me 36-38 hours, just the woodwork.. oh well i was slow maybe if i made 10 i made the last one in 20 hours..)

Edited August 14, 2022 by dutchzcarguy

[HS30-H]

1 hour ago, dutchzcarguy said:

I remember that i ordered for a 6,5 mm mill-bit then i would have a little room for the 2 component glue between the steel and the wood. (As my wheel had the open holes in the spokes it was a later wheel.)  The rim was 6,3 mm that i remember distinctly.. this is 1/4 inch and a common seen thickness i think.

My 'autopsy' wheel is from a 4/70 production-dated car, and the hoop measures consistently at 7mm all the way around.

Conjecture: I wonder if there was a production change where a smaller rod was specified. Could it have been related to safety, as was the change from solid to pierced spokes?

Your customised wood rim wheel is based on a pierced-spoke wheel, right?

1 hour ago, dutchzcarguy said:

Alan, i don;t agree with you.. i don't mind but i just don't agree.. If i look at the first "wood"picture in this topic at the lower part and make a magnification i can clearly see that the grain lays all over the place.. it's has many different directions. 

Well we are going to have to agree to disagree then, because what I have in front of me has a readily-observable grain structure which follows the circular shape of the wheel. I don't see grain 'laying all over the place'.

It seems to weave in an out of itself like rope, and where it hits surface layer after the glossy (varnish?) coating is worn away it has texture too. That texture is quite distinctive. Obviously the tooling required a split line between its two halves and if you look closely you can see that, but it is very well disguised. 

 

 

See the tooling split line in the RH side piece above?

Here:

[dutchzcarguy]

2 hours ago, dutchzcarguy said:

How was this wheel made so fast without hours of sanding and stuff?  Mould is the answer

Yeah your right Alan,one cán see exactly were the mold was opened.. 😂

WE should just agree to disagree Alan, no problem at all!

Mart.

[Mark Maras]

How about calling it an oriented strand steering wheel. OSSW or just OSW.

[HS30-H]

1 hour ago, Mark Maras said:

How about calling it an oriented strand steering wheel. OSSW or just OSW.

No doubt that's what was involved in making it, but both Izumi and Nissan called them 'Wood Rim Steering Wheels' so I think it fair to follow suit.

So, high-pressure moulded, heat-cured, oriented strand wood fibre (quite a mouthful), but certainly 'wood'.

 

[bartsscooterservice]

Interesting discussion , I can understand why most people call it plastic, or " wood simulated steering wheel ". 

It looks like it's a form of pressed wood fibre, A new technology in the time, compared to traditional wood steering wheels. Maybe mis- understood all the time...  

Like wiki says: 

Composites[edit]

Wood fibres can be combined with thermoplastics to create strong, waterproof products for outdoor use, such as deck boards or outdoor furniture.^[6]

 

What is Wood Composite? Why Is The Best Material? Start Woodworking Now 

Amazon.com: Autozensation 370Mm Wooden Steering Wheel 50Mm Depth Wood Plastic Composite W Aluminum Spoke : Automotive 

 

So yeah, it's real wood, but not wood in the traditional way