Cutting your own leather for recovering?

[ChrisP]

Last week I started a thread about recovering my F3 with MD-4 and DE-2.

This week I got an email back from Morgan Sparks saying they have pre-cut pieces for the F3 but not the MD-4 or DE-2. So I figured I'd order a few sheets of leather and see if I could do this myself.

So does anyone have tips for this? I figure it'll probably be easiest to take the old leather off and use that as a template. I can trace that on to the new leather and cut it using some decent scissors. Will this work, or is the leather too thick for this?

Next, the MD-4 leather has some holes for various things (flash sync and stuff I believe). Any ideas on how to deal with these? Special tools or anything I'll need? If so, where's the best place to pick this kind of stuff up?

P.s. I know sound clueless. This is definitely going to be an adventure!

 

[oftheherd]

Sometimes places like Marshals has bags of left over leathers. Sometimes there are peices of leather large enough to cover a camera. Using the old leather is a great idea. Be careful how you get it off. A wood tool used very carefully may do the job. For cutting, an X-acto knife with the proper blade, like the triangular shaped one and a lot of care should do it for you.

Good luck.

 

[jesse1dog]

You need a very thin leather.
Old covering as a template works - I've done it.
Cutting with fine craft knife and scissors works well - take your time, and remember you can always cut off a bit but you can't put it back.
If the cut edges are not the leather colour use a marker pen to carefully colour them - experiment with a bit of scrap first.
Thin leather easily stretches when gluing on - so again take your time.

jesse

 

[ChrisP]

You need a very thin leather.
Old covering as a template works - I've done it.
Cutting with fine craft knife and scissors works well - take your time, and remember you can always cut off a bit but you can't put it back.
If the cut edges are not the leather colour use a marker pen to carefully colour them - experiment with a bit of scrap first.
Thin leather easily stretches when gluing on - so again take your time.

jesse

Just to clarify I ordered the leather from cameraleather so its just cutting it that I'm worried about. Especially the holes, doing a little research that might be easiest with a dedicated leather punch (maybe a collection of these would allow me to cut all my own leather from now on!)

 

[Contarama]

If you live in or near a fairly large city I would suggest checking out the local upholstery supply shop. You can find all kinds of leather and leather like vinyls, etc. at such a place. They also usually carry brush on or spray on Landau top glue which is fantastic stuff...one brand is Weldwood HHR Landau Top glue.

I am a car upholstery guy I have often thought about tinkering with some of these coverings and building some straps and bags and whatnot but just never have really made the time to do it.