How do you restore an original VW wood roof rack?

[THX 1138]

I saw a local ad for an old wood roof rack stamped VW of Germany. Its pretty cheap but it needs to be restored.
Might take on this project but have a few questions. What is the proper way to restore an old VW roof rack?
How do you replace the rivets? I imagine you would have to remove at least one side to take the old wood off.
Does anyone know where to get the original style rivets?
I see people offering the wood slates but the edges look too square.
Did the originals have rounded edges or were they square?
What about the rubber tubes for the legs? Are they originally black or clear? And, of course, where can i get the correct decal thats not a sticker?

Any help appreciated, I did a search and didn’t find any helpful topics that dealt with restoring a rack.
Only found old topics about power coating or what the paint color is.
Maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

[gt1953]

Honestly send it to Rick Restorations in Vegas and he will charge you like 2 grand. You could do all of the work yourself with research, check with the local VW club members too.
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[Miklo]

Just blast the old paint off and have a good look at all the welds. Then repaint to whatever color you found was OG.

If the slats are really beat I would break out the old slats leaving the rivets in place. Make new slats but put a notch or a V at the ends to slip around the rivets once the slats were bent into the rack.

I'm pretty sure the slats are squared off also.

I'm not so sure on the rubber protectors though... but what I have seen used quite a bit is braided fuel line cut to fit. Any rubber fuel line would do. The plastic clear protectors don't stay clear for long and don't last as long as the rubber fuel line.

... Then yes, there's Rick's Restorations.
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[RareAir]

[hitest]

The slats are not square. I'm not pretty sure- I'm sure. The right way is to cut your wood strips to right dimensions- but push them through your router table 4 times against a 1/4" round-over bit.

As for rivets- you'll have to ask around. But, if you cannot find substitutes... One way is to grind the Phillips head nearly entirely off a stove bolt, cut it to duplicate rivet length- then crush it as a substitute (but it looks kinda messy underneath). Other folks have been somewhat successful at reusing the old rivets. I was not- and gave in to just running bolts through it.

VeeDubDoug is exactly right with the wood slat swap technique- and I second his vote for simple, (but) unbraided fuel/vacuum line from your FLAPS. I sat down and cut up a mile of this so my friends would all have proper looking rack paws.
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[panicman]

For the slats, you would be amazed at how much you can revitalize very old, gray, dried out wood. If they are broken, that's one thing. But if they are intact, and just look like skeletal gray wood, you may be able to bring them back. I believe the original slats were German ash. Mine looked bad, but I made a solution of baking powder and water, and used a very stiff scrub brush to clean them, top bottom, and sides. It took several hours, but the wood came back a vibrant blonde. What I scrubbed out of the wood looked like a combination of vomit and diarrhea. After the clean wood dried, I gave it a light all-over sanding with a scotchbrite pad. I applied a few coats of Varethane, and created a replacement load sticker based on a photo of an original. I used that to produce a water slide decal, which I applied and sealed onto the wood using more coats of Varethane. The frame should be finished in a dull silver. Not great photos for detail, but you can see how the cleaning brought the color back to the wood in these pictures:

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[GermanRust52]

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=1663449

[stale air]

[68IHscout]

[Dave]

I used aluminum aircraft rivets on mine, worked good, smashed down easily, and held the wood tight.
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[FlyingFasty]

Is the OG 10 slats frame aluminum or steal?
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[panicman]

They are steel.
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