Leather ?

Your welcome. I forgot to mention used leather coats, skirts and other used clothing apparel, also at thrift and second hand stores.

Have fun searching. I'm sure you'll come up with other places to look also, like going to weekend yard sales at peoples homes. You might even find some cheap model kits - I have. Summer is a good time for that.

Have fun

[quote user="Treehugger Dave"]

I've been doing leather interiors off and on for around 15 years on 1/24 and 1/24 scale cars.

There are a couple of real nice leather supply stores in my area that let the customers go through the skins of different animal and some are much thinner than others.

Also thrift stores are a good source sometime for womens thin leather accessories like purses and gloves, and I've had friends and relatives pass on their worn out pieces which can be reconditioned with dies and conditioners purchased at a leather shop.

Lots of fun and it adds to the hobby experience, and gives you new talents to enjoy and be challanged by.

I've been doing leather interiors off and on for around 15 years on 1/24 and 1/24 scale cars.

There are a couple of real nice leather supply stores in my area that let the customers go through the skins of different animal and some are much thinner than others.

Also thrift stores are a good source sometime for womens thin leather accessories like purses and gloves, and I've had friends and relatives pass on their worn out pieces which can be reconditioned with dies and conditioners purchased at a leather shop.

Lots of fun and it adds to the hobby experience, and gives you new talents to enjoy and be challanged by.

Such innovative and cool ideas and techniques here wanna try them all 

[quote user="oldcarguy"]

Okay ;

 I have read this and woud like to suggest this .I have used the Micro-Mark plane for skiving . You have to set the blade very shallow and be very careful . Now there is this .This is very hard when using Soft Leather gloves ( the dress kind ) .

 It can be done . Just be slow and patient and careful . When you have the thickness of a piece of paper you are where you need to be .Use thinned contact cement to apply and you will have an interior to beat all interiors ! O.C.G.

      P.S. I once tried this by wetting the leather in Saddle Soap .This worked best  but , I don't have any friends with horses anymore .

thats cooland really appreciate your advise and I will have go. 

Okay ;

 I have read this and woud like to suggest this .I have used the Micro-Mark plane for skiving . You have to set the blade very shallow and be very careful . Now there is this .This is very hard when using Soft Leather gloves ( the dress kind ) .

 It can be done . Just be slow and patient and careful . When you have the thickness of a piece of paper you are where you need to be .Use thinned contact cement to apply and you will have an interior to beat all interiors ! O.C.G.

      P.S. I once tried this by wetting the leather in Saddle Soap .This worked best  but , I don't have any friends with horses anymore . Oh ! One thing I did forget to mention .You can get really thin leather in Goodwill .Yup , Those nice little leather party jackets the ladies used to like . Nice part , they are really thin . P.P.S. 

 I just recently got an old pair of  Merchant Marine Brown dress shoes from Goodwill . Why ? They were starting to peel . I now have very nice super thin , seat sized pieces of that cowhide .

Leather..it depends on the scale being worked on. Real leather such a glove leather is fine to use on models of sixteenth scale and bigger. Smaller scales I have found better to use paint in a matt basic colour, pick out the detail again in a slightly darker matt than the original. The final stage is to use waterproof drawing ink that is translucent that when dry will give a nice leathery sheen to the upholstery. Needless to say the ink has to complement the basic colour that has been painted, eg red on red, brown on brown etc.

Ddms

 It's possible to make leather - even wallet leather - much thinner by "skiving." The best way I've found is to soak a piece of leather in soapy water, let it dry until it's just damp, turn it rough side up - smooth side down, and slice off thin pieces using a very sharp, curved X-acto blade. It's like peeling a potato with a sharp knife, except don't try for long strips. Keep skiving (slicing off thin pieces) until the face is as thin as cardstock.  

In case you're tempted, I've tried using a potato peeler, and it doesn't work.

Leather that's still damp with soapy water will slice like butter, so it's surprisingly easy to control your cuts. Don't expect the result to be uniformly thin, but you can get it pretty even. 

It made me nervous the first time I tried it, because I was worried I'd cut all the way through and ruin the piece. But won't cut through as easily as you might think. My guess is that tanning toughens the face more than the rest of it. Be sure you have more than enough for the job, just in case.    

Very thin leather is stretchy stuff, so cutting and fitting it can be tricky. So it's also a good idea to skive some extra pieces.

Ddms 

 

Hi there I know the above posts are going back a while but I was just reading through them as I looking for some help with upholstery work on my next Pocher Alfa that I'm about to start. I've just completed an old Pocher Rolls Royce and felt that I could have done a better job on the leather upholstery work. 

Im hoping that someone out there may be able to steer me in the right direction to obtain a book or an online site to look at to help me improve my skills.

any help,would be much appreciated 

Since we know now how to thin the leather, you need sources for different colors and textures. Go to a local furniture store and see if they have any outdated swatches. They change their stock regularly and usually throw away the old samples. I used to work in a furniture store and probably have nearly a hundred swatches of most any color. You have given me an idea for my next project. Just an added suggestion; you might want to rough up the parts to be covered with sandpaper. I never had much luck with Elmer's glue on a slick surface. Also, if you flip over the leather to the suede side, it makes a nice carpeting material and you don't have to thin it. Good luck! 

 Wow,I'm going to have try this out.Thanks for the links and advice.

Here's the link to Alex Kustov's leather upholstery tutorial.

-marcel

Way back in the Stone Age, Fred or Barney wrote an article in Car Model or Model Car Science about leather interiors.  If I remember correctly, the use of glove leather was mentioned, as it is very thin and soft.  The article also advised using contact cement to secure the leather in place.  Try a flea market for some inexpensive driving gloves or "kid" gloves.

 It's possible to make leather - even wallet leather - much thinner by "skiving." The best way I've found is to soak a piece of leather in soapy water, let it dry until it's just damp, turn it rough side up - smooth side down, and slice off thin pieces using a very sharp, curved X-acto blade. It's like peeling a potato with a sharp knife, except don't try for long strips. Keep skiving (slicing off thin pieces) until the face is as thin as cardstock.  

In case you're tempted, I've tried using a potato peeler, and it doesn't work.

Leather that's still damp with soapy water will slice like butter, so it's surprisingly easy to control your cuts. Don't expect the result to be uniformly thin, but you can get it pretty even. 

It made me nervous the first time I tried it, because I was worried I'd cut all the way through and ruin the piece. But won't cut through as easily as you might think. My guess is that tanning toughens the face more than the rest of it. Be sure you have more than enough for the job, just in case.    

Very thin leather is stretchy stuff, so cutting and fitting it can be tricky. So it's also a good idea to skive some extra pieces.

Ddms 

Thanks for the help.I'll give these a try

If you have a Jo Ann Faberics in town go there and pick up some suede leather,, You can work with this and use normal CA glue to put it on and also its only .015 thick. Comes in 8 different colors. Once you get every thing the way you like it. You can either leave it alone or clear coat it, When clear coating it, it will change the color of it a little but it also turns it into a hard leather look, Kind of what you are looking for a Leather-Vinyl like the real car.

Go to a garage sale and pick up a cheap wallet, then tear it apart. That's about the thinnest leather you'll find.

Use contact cement and work in very small areas, pressing the leather into the crevices as you go.

 Really don't know.The GTO comes with a leather interior.I thought it would be cool to put one in the model.

What kind of leather are you looking at wanting to put into it?  Why I ask is that hard leather is a little harder then putting in suede leather.