Using leather for cockpit surround

[Geoff S]

I'm getting to the point of detail in my current build and I've acquired some thin glove leather (bought from a charity shop - actual gloves, apparently new and unworn) to pad the surround of the open cockpit. I'm just not sure how to make it look good. I have some electrical grommet strip that I've used for other open cockpits but it's square, rather than round in section.

Any tips or pointers would be welcome.

Geoff

[Danny Fenton]

Geoff, I have just done a leather cockpit surround using foam Vector board. The Process is on my Fury/Nimrod blog, if you want more info.

Richard Crapp has put me onto a source of real leather off-cuts if that helps?

Pittards

Cheers

Danny

[Geoff S]

Never heard of Vector board but I Duckduckgo'd it and find that Steve Webb's sell the Graupner version. The thinnest is 1mm. Did you use 0.25mm as you mentioned? I may use that as the underlay for my real leather, which is very thin.

So thanks for that Danny.

Geoff

[Steve Balaam]

I made some cockpit coming on a model boat once by taking the wires out of some ordinary electrical cable, rolled

and glued the leather around the insulator part using contact adhesive, then slit down the middle to glue to the cockpit. Came out very nice.

Steve B

[Peter Miller]

You can buy super thin and fexible leather from dolls house suppliers.

You can also buy rubber U section which loos perfect. This is thanks toGary who was building my Ballerina

**LINK**

[Danny Fenton]

Posted by Geoff S on 11/06/2020 00:32:05:

Never heard of Vector board but I Duckduckgo'd it and find that Steve Webb's sell the Graupner version. The thinnest is 1mm. Did you use 0.25mm as you mentioned? I may use that as the underlay for my real leather, which is very thin.

So thanks for that Danny.

Geoff

Not many people have heard of Vector Board, it is quite a new modelling material and requires some special techniques. It is considerably lighter than depron. The thinnest Vector Board I believe is 0.25 but Graupner as you know went bust so all you see in the shops is all that is left. (However there is a rumour that it will be available direct from the manufacturer soon)

The thin vector board I used has a surface when painted just like leather. it can be easily glued to the models surface, unlike leather, even the thinnest leather is not 0.25 mm thick.

I did also include a link in the original post to a site Richard Crapp put me on to, that sells finest leather off-cuts if you really want to use leather.

Cheers

Danny

[Geoff S]

Thanks for all the help. I have the leather. It was just the technique of of applying it I was (and probably still am!) having difficulties with. I've ordered a metre length of the rubber edging strip Peter linked to and I think it will support the leather effectively.

I'm not going 'full Fenton' on this but I am gradually getting drawn in (I'm even contemplating the tedious task of rib stitching on the wings!). I'm still definitely in the sport-scale camp.

Geoff

[George P.]

I used the cockpit coaming included in the DB Pup kit and covered that with a strip of leather material. Then I drilled holes for the eyelets and then threaded through the cord. Given my modelling skills, I was hoping for a sport-scale feel without messing things up too much!