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The fine leather you can get in Europe is the best in the world.....Italy, Germany, England, France they produce gorgeous stuff They can make hides very thin and beautiful in colour and texture and so thin like you mention One of my retirement dreams is to go to Florence and take some leatherwork courses Cato gave me a link for a leather source in England last year actually I like that you scratch build ..that is the highest form of modelling I have three books on small metal lathe and milling techniques and plan on buying some equipment when I get a new shop built

Absolutely!

Hey you missed all the fun...and me blabbing on I was thinking last night and Harry hit on something important In doing modelling we might be better off with the artificial stuff you can get at art stores and the like It is thinner, more pliable in most cases, cheaper and comes in a ton of different colours and textures Real leather is more expensive and more work. Here you can see me in the MG build thinning this chrome hide from the back....process is called skiving and it is messy and a pain as get rips and tears and uneven areas. You cannot skive artificial leather the same way I love real leather, but have all the funky tools to work with it. A car hobbyist would be best off with more predictable synthetic stuff

You did a fabulous job on both metal and wood weathering...very realistic Makes me want to fire up the grinder and shine her back up

Wow, what a paint job. Holy smokes!

Great work....just need some long-bearded figures standing along side now

Nice clean build

Very cool! I like the little dio you put it in as well

Very cool, I really like the roof chop What paint are we thinking???

Synthetic leather is not leather and will take paint differently than real leather My comment stands to try it out on a test piece first before risking the whole It gets very complicated as to what manufacturers call "leather" and what they do to a cow hide to maximize production out of it by cutting layers of it off A certain % of ground up leather added into synthetic products qualifies products to be called real leather...which is BS As far as I am concerned, if it has artificial backing, is modified chopped up and reconstitiuted it is a man made product It can be really difficult when buying leather products as to if they are real leather or not...some of them are good some not I am blabbing about a can of worms subject, often I can't tell if leather is real or not

ooo, good idea!

Cato, the classic one is called "neatsfoot" oil, but olive oil, canola oil etc work as well You are re-feeding the leather with oils that it lost during the wetting process Similar to adding oil to a wooden cutting board to prevent it drying out and cracking Again, this is only for the veg tanned cowboy leather...won't work on chrome tanned that Alex showed above If anyone wants to get into leather work, Tandy Leather from the states is a good starting point for basic tools etc....or I can help

Hi Cato, good to hear from you Yes, leather can shrink and stretch out I watched some videos on Hermes craftsman making gloves and saw how much they stretched out the leather before cutting any patterns out This is chrome-tanned leather most of us work with here. It will stretch out nicely over a form. You cannot cut into it or stamp patterns into chrome leather, but you can heat foil or even paint logos and such Auto industry uses a chrome tanned leathers for durability and it is still thinner than the veg tanned stuff For veg tanned leather, think a horse saddle, you can wet it, cut and stamp patterns into it and dye or stain the surface as water soaks into it While it dries it will shrink, so often you glue a panel of leather to a backing, wet it properly, stamp it, let it dry and then take it off the backing. After drying you add a bit of oil to soften it up to your desired feel as it will be hard and crusty Here is a tiki I did in veg leather, painted with acrylic paint Sorry to deviate this thread with my babbling

There you go, the advice from the expert and I am not being a smart ass...he really is the expert! On leather working forums, we get questions about changing the colour of a bag or shoes or whatever. It never works. You are only putting a bit of colour on top of the leather and it will peel away/wear easily. The colour of chrome tanned leather is created while the hide is being tanned and cured (cured with chromium salts) It is infused right in Vegetable tanned leather (literally tanned with tree bark and other natural tannin products) has more ability to be dyed after it is processed, but still best fully immersed (dipped) into a dye to allow it to soak up all the way through. If you want to surface coat the leather with paint and not touch it again that might work, but I would test it out first

The contours in the middle of the front seat look flat to me. The edging looks very good in all of them If you look at what Cato did with his Rolls seats, he put some material under the leather to give more shape to the seat http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=86520&page=32 I would try something like that I don't know about painting leather, especially the chrome tanned stuff that that looks like, it doesn't usually work well You can dye veg tanned 'cowboy leather' but even then it takes full on dipping to get good color Test a small bit and see what happens

that is really cool I like that there is a real version to go from

Wow, I have never open in the store or the car, but I can see the logic of checking for problems or missing trees I do open when I get home and go over the kit like Scott does above None of my kits still have the plastic on them

Ok, just let me know what you want and i will try and do some outside in better light..but I will post it in the WIP thread

Ahh, I better have a look at my kit for that Thanks for the heads up

It is DONE Sitting on its shelf under the lights at work,card stock sign backing with plastic rivets to hold the maker's label on I shall post no more photos of it's chromeness to irritate Mr Skip..but I did leave the top off just so he can see all that beautiful chrome

Your English is far better than my German!

You two guys from Germany are a blast to have around! Cool to have two more large scale auto and Pocher nuts on this forum Keep posting away gentlemen

Ok less work for me I opened them up on my MG and had no warpage or twisting issues

Taking notes on the techniques you are using This is authentic hand hammered vehicle production I think your wood bucks will make into nice models as well! That is the woodworker in me coming out

It is looking good You opened the vents and thinned the bonnet panels?? I am sure just opening the vents is ok...that is what I am planning Keep us posted