Plastic interior knobs

[Carl Eidsness]

I'd like to restore the cone shaped knob on the end of the gear shift lever on my '48 Kaiser.  Many were broken off, but mine is in good shape, structurally.  But the half of it where the sun beat down for 70 years has surface degradation.  Looked like it had crystalized and was powdery to the touch.  I very lightly sanded that and seems sound again.  But the appearance is different from the half that was not exposed to the sun.  It is smooth and shiny.  Looks polished, almost as if it had a coat of shiny varnish (sure it isn't varnished, just looks that way), and smooth.  The degraded half is now rough to the touch and appears dull and crystalized.  Does any one know how I can restore the finish?  Any product or procedure in particular?  Has anyone addressed this issue in the past?  What is this material?  I thought maybe bakelite, but researching that on line it seems most of that is black, whereas this is a tan or cream color.
Carl Eidsness
Montana
48 K Special

[MarkH]

I brought the badly weathered & dull gelcoat back to a high shine on a couple fiberglass boats. Started wet sanding with 600 grit on the worst one and worked up to either 1200 or 1500 on both. Followed that by buffing with 3M light compound, followed by 3M glaze. Could read the reflection of a ruler to 32 inches.

Also polished up some black Aero knobs with repeated brief & light pressure on the softest cloth buffing wheel I could find. Those were prone to heat damage and required much caution. Left blue color on the wheel.

You might also try a Harbor Freight headlight lens polishing kit, comes with the pad & compound, about $9. Whatever you do, go slow to avoid heat.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

The knobs on many K-F and Willys vehicles are a bakealite plastic and didn't weather well at all.  Best suggestion at this point if you can't nmake the National in Grantsbury TX is to run a WANTED ad in the monthly bulletin identifyting TRIM code off the data plate and knob position (driver side front door, passenger rear door, etc) needed.