shift knob | projectboxster

A sports car should have a proper wooden shift knob, IMHO, and I enjoy playing with, err, make that doing work on my wood lathe so I've turned wooden knobs for my hobby cars for years. The shift levers in the other cars I turned knobs for were round with a threaded section on the top so the knobs could me made to just screw on. The Boxster's lever has a rectangular cross section so that makes fitting a knob problematic. This is one way to make a knob that fits...

The first step is to find the blank's center and lay out where cuts will need to be made.

Using a circle cutting bit to cut a slot for the shift pattern medalion's mounting clips.

Drilling 7mm holes in the bottom of the blank to create a 7 x 17mm slot.

Cleaning out the slot with chisels .

Checking to see that the shift lever arm fits neatly the slot. This is my car's OEM shift lever, I have one of Ben's short shifters installed in my car.

I trimed a scrap of wood so that it's the same size as the shifter's arm.

I then glued blocks of wood to each side to increase the diameter to give the drive center something to bite on.

The corners were then cut off the blank to form a rough octagon, the wood strip inserted in the blank, and then mounted on the lathe.

The blank turned to a cylinder.

Starting to turn to a rough shift knob shape. Note that I adjust my lathe with a Lancia Beta lug wrench!

The tool rest removed so it wasn't in the way when I sanded and finished the completed knob.

All done and test fit on the OEM lever. I think the curly fingure on this chunk of maple looks especially nice.

I made the knob tall so that the set screws will be hidden by the leather shift boot. The top of the knob is only about 1/2 inch above the end of the shift arm.

Another angle. The shift pattern medalion was a eBay find labeled to fit a VW.

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