New Dashboard

[BDA]

I'm just waiting till you offer the same advice to someone with an Aluminium dash.

You got me Silver! I guess it all depends on whether he polishes the dash...

D'man, you're having too much fun with this! 

Gavin, I have a NOS stock dash and white there seems to be some paint on the back, there is no way you would say it's painted. If anything, it looks more like stain. Of course the edges are not finished. It's never been put on a car and spent pretty much its whole life hanging up in the garage (over thirty years) and of course the finish is cracking.

[GavinT]

BDA,
Well, there ya go . . 30 years hanging on the wall like one green bottle and it still cracked!
I always assumed the major contributor to the cracking was the harsh environment of the car's cabin. Perhaps that's not so.

As we all know, the cracking actually happens between the first layer of the ply and the second.
Don't know how true this is but it's said that Chapman used furniture grade veneered panel which you'd think would be pretty decent quality.

My theory was that the relatively thick and hard layer of clear coat is stronger than the glue holding the top (finish veneer) layer of ply. After x number of heat cycles, the glue starts to let go.
Perhaps heat isn't a large part of the issue.

[4129R]

Having made 4 glove boxes from 4mm ply and oatmeal Amblar, stuck together with Evostik, and held to the rear bulkhead carpet with 25mm ally angle, I had several black and silver metal stickers of the tire sizes from the old cardboard boxes.

I carefully flattened them out and have stuck double sided sticky tape to them all to stick in the new boxes, as I think they retain some of the 70s Lotus character.