I've found that Universal pink pads quickly burn varnish from the sidewalls, but stop the bike reasonably well in most situations. It's hard to keep the spokes tight enough, since the rims flex radially quite a bit. The rims I have are "cerchi Ghisallo", which were common in the 70s and 80s. Some freinds used them for track racing, but the wood rims tend to self-destruct in crashes.
I once built a set of wooden rims on Campy 6-speed hubs. The front wheels was great, but the dish of the rear wheel, combined with the flexible wooden rim, made the rear wheel very very mushy, and required frequent truing (every 20-25 miles!) I didn't know about locktite back then.
Last year someone in England mentioned having leather brake pads for use with wooden rims. (Was that Hilary Stone?)