Rescuing an old glove box

[JLT]

As you know, the bay window buses (at least the early ones) had a glove box made of cardboard. After 52 years, mine has started to deteriorate and crumbles to the touch.

Since the only aftermarket I could locate was made of "fiberboard material" which sounded suspiciously like the original cardboard and cost $83.84 from Wolfsburg West, I decided to see if I could restore the one I had. Gorilla Tape wasn't going to do the job, since all it could stick to was crumbling cardboard. So I took another approach.

I painted the exterior of the glove box with Deft "Clear Wood Finish," which is a brush-on lacquer. I chose that type for two reasons:
1. I had some in my shop, left over from some some musical instrument build I'd done before I found a brand of lacquer that was specifically for musical instruments.
2. I wanted something that would soak into what was left of the cardboard and, when it cured, would stabilize it. I knew that lacquer was better at this than, say, a wipe-on polyurethane coat.
3. When applying a coat over the previous coat, the new coat partially dissolves the older one and sort of "melts" into it, eliminating the need to sand between coats.

I used three coats of the finish, applying them a couple of hours apart (that stuff dries fast). As I suspected, the first coat immediately saturated the cardboard, disappearing almost as soon as it was brushed on. I kept applying it until some of the lacquer remained on the surface. Then I applied the other two coats. When I was done, the glove box was indeed harder and more stable than it was before. You could flex it slightly and it would bend, but not break.

Is is a real cure? I don't know. But I guess it will do until a real cure shows up. I don't know of anybody who makes aftermarket ones for bay window buses, and I suspect that all the originals are as prone to breaking as mine was, so I really haven't lost anything but time and a little bit of lacquer.

[JLT]

UPDATE:

Well, the result was a little weaker than I expected. I think that I should have diluted the Deft Wood Finish with lacquer thiner for the first coat, to let it seep in more, and then followed it up with more coats of undiluted finish. I ended up covering all the rims with Gorilla Tape, since it seemed that those areas were the ones most liable for breakage. (And the tape stuck much better to the lacquered surfaces.)

[Amskeptic]

UPDATE:

Well, the result was a little weaker than I expected. I think that I should have diluted the Deft Wood Finish with lacquer thiner for the first coat, to let it seep in more, and then followed it up with more coats of undiluted finish. I ended up covering all the rims with Gorilla Tape, since it seemed that those areas were the ones most liable for breakage. (And the tape stuck much better to the lacquered surfaces.)

There is a plastic glovebox available but it is so ugly and shiny.

How did VW form these gloveboxes in the first place? I would like to do a cardboard glovebox, then apply real good fuzzy flocking for that cozy VW look.