The Dummies Guide to Making a Jaguar Fascia

The fascia in the XJ12 was quite poorly and needed replacement. The lack of proper maintenance had caused the gloss coating to crack and peel up the burl walnut veneer.

A quick check at XK's Unlimited for a new fascia revealed a price of near $700.00. Considering the car only cost $300 more, I was not prepared to dish out that kind of money on purely aesthetics. And thus begins the story of my Series 2 XJ12 fascia.

Itinerary you will need for this project:

1) Cutting tool
Either a jigsaw or coping saw will do. I recommend the former as it will give you a clean finish. Do no try to do this with just a hacksaw blade. It will take forever, look like shit and tear up your hands. How do I know? Cos I've done it. I bought the cheapest jigsaw at Canadian Tire just for the job, it cost $27.99.

2) Drill
In order to cut out the circular dials and rectangular air vents, you need a drill to make holes at the corners of each shape. This allows you to get the cutting tool in position. Hole cutter bits are great if you have them, otherwise a jigsaw will do. You will need a 1-1/8" countersink bit for the recess the glove box door lock goes into and a 1/2" bit for the crash roll mounting bolts.

3) Sandpaper
You'll need a coarse 100 grit paper to clean up any rough edges after the cut. You might also need finer papers to get the whole thing feeling smooth. During the gloss stage, you will need a 600+ grit paper to lightly sand between each gloss coat.

4) Old fascia
Unless you're a genius, you aren't just going to cut this thing out of a plain sheet of wood without some sort of guide. The old fascia is used as a stencil to cut the new fascia.

5) Wood
To build the new fascia you will need a sheet of wood at least 10" x 55" x 1/2". The choice of wood is really up to your budget. 8' x 4' sheets are enough to make at least 4 fascias. For the basics a solid pine sheet goes for about $50. If you want to get fancy, a solid oak sheet would be about $200. Jaguar originally used burl walnut veneer. If you can afford to use solid wood, don't use veneer. I was on a budget and thus I went with oak veneer = $67/sheet. It might be important to note that the softer the wood you use, the more work it will take to finish it properly.

6a) Wood stain
Unless you want to keep the natural wood colour, you're going to need a wood stainer. Water based wood stain is recommended as it will not turn yellow in age like oil based stainers do. I went with a colour called "Early American". "American Chestnut" is also an easily available colour that matches the original quite nicely.
6b) Wood Pre-Stain conditioner
In order to get a clean consistent stain accross the fascia regardless of the natural imperfections of the wood, you will need a pre-stain conditioner. Again water based.
6c) Polyurethane Varnish
To get that almost glass like feel and shine of the original fascia you need a polyurethane varnish. There are three main finishes, Satin, Gloss and Semi-Gloss. Try out the samples at the store. Gloss is quite rich and almost "gooey" in feel. Satin doesn't hide the wood grains too well. Semi-Gloss is a best of both worlds and is what I used. Look for a water based product suited for outdoor use. This would potentially be less sensitive to UV light and heat. You will need at least a pint of this stuff, as you'll be doing 3 to 4 coats.

7) Brushes
Any synthetic brush or foam pad will do.

Lets begin...

1) Grab your wood :)
2) Clamp the old fascia onto it and draw out the shape

3) Cut out the shape

3) Pre-stain (no image)

4) Stain

5) Stain again if you need to

















6) Gloss










About 4 gloss coats later...









I put the glove box door from the old fascia besides the new one for comparison. See how the unfaded area of the old fascia (near the holes) matches the new fascia almost perfectly.

As shown in the photos, my choice of oak instead of burl walnut gives a more rustique look than the processed finish of the original. This is the luxury of making your own fascia, you choose the wood.

Costs

• Brushes
• Pre-Stainer
• Stain
• Gloss
• Jigsaw
• Sandpaper
• Sanding Discs
• 8x4 Wood
  

= CAD $170

Now even though the gloss dries in 4 or 5 hours, its wise to let it properly dry for a full week. Once properly dried you should polish it using a decent furniture polish to get a nice finished look.

Here are a few photos with some trim back on.






























The little black translucent plastic pieces in front of each indicator light started coming off, so I'm in the process of super-gluing them back on.