Detailing of Interior Wood Trim

[tgara]

I was wondering what people are using to clean and protect interior wood trim. I know that some trim pieces are imitation wood (usually plastic), so I would expect a plastic polish would work here. But what about real wood trim? How does one care for this material?

Any insight into this would be appreciated because I do not recall seeing this topic come up too often.

[travisdecpn]

I'm not sure, but i think some people use Final Inspection to clean interior wood trim.

[Rockpick]

Good question!

My personal opinion is to treat imitation wood like plastic (as it is plastic) but, I wouldn't utilize ANYTHING that is abrasive on it. Reaon being is that most all of the wood interior kits (the plastic ones) are laminate plastic. By that, I mean they put a 'sticker', of sorts, over a molded plastic piece that is fit for the dash piece or trim item. Basically, it's then 'shrink-wrapped' to the plastic piece. Utilizing an abrasive polish could work through that laminate and ruin the dash/trim piece.

As far as real wood is concerned, I'm not exactly sure. I will make an effort to go over and bother our neighbor at work as he has a VERY old Jag that has a REAL WOOD interior. That car is his PRIDE AND JOY and I think he'll have a good answer. It'll give me a chance to drop my name in the hat to detail it next time for him too!

RP

[Rockpick]

---> MOVED TO INTERIOR CARE FROM DETAILING 101 <---

-RP

[rusty bumper]

Meguiars makes some great wood polishes too...Check out the furniture forum.

[TwoTooBlack]

I read somewhere, maybe here in the forum, that the wood on BMW is sealed with some type of plastic (polyurethane?) for protection and the poster used NXT with great success. I gave this a try on my wife's car and, low and behold, it did a beautiful, job on it. It seemed to deepen the richness of the wood. If you've got plastic or a platic coating, you might give it a try.

[Aurora40]

Yes, I think most modern wood interiors have some kind of urethane clear on them. I've used wood waxes on mine, and I do the more frequent cleaning with Final Detail. It works great on fingerprints and such, and brings out a nice natural gloss. I imagine things like NXT would work fine, though, provided the wood is coated. I've just never tried it.