Leather seat cover

[Umlaufmotor]

During the Great War, the Pilot - and the Observer seats were manufactured in the airplanes of all sorts of different materials.
There were seats of braided raffia, wooden seats , simple wooden seat boards - or later -, armored seats from bullet- resistant steel ( Junkers J1 ) or aluminum .
In most cases, the backs from the seats were covered with a thin fabric or leather.

This seat cover in leather or fabric can be shown relative easily with paint or decals.

But there is also another way:

This is the seat of the Hansa Brandenburg W29.

The seat is actually covered with a thin material.
In our case, with simple tinfoil.

First, the paper is cut into the appropriate size .

After, the seat is treated with a very thin plastic cement.
Now, the paper is pressed onto the fresh adhesive.
In contrast to my face - wrinkles are here welcome!
 

 

The tinfoil is bent about 1mm around the edge of the seat .
The tinfoil is cut along the seat back with a sharp scalpel blade.

This edge is fixed with superglue.
Allow to dry.

 

Now the seat can be painted.
Tamiya dark brown was used as a base color.

 

Above the orange line that Brown was brightened somewhat , below the blue line was slightly darkened with smoke.

Washing with black-brown Oilcolor.

 

Then sealed with clear coat.

A extremely thin plastic strip was attached as a seam on the seat cushion.

The buttons were painted with Mr. Color Metal "brass".

 

 

Here is the seat of the Pfalz D.IIIa.
This seat cover should look old and a bit worn.
It was used a darker brown than on the seat of the Hansa Brandenburg.

 

All seats edges was a very light brown color imitated scraped leather.

The seat cushion is not yet final painted in these pictures.

 

 

Servus

Bertl

 

 

[JeroenPeters]

Bertl! Wow! 

Thank you so much for sharing these techniques! They really add so much life and individuality to the WnW kits.

 

Cheers,

Jeroen

[Daywalker]

BRILLIANT!  I all most certainly use this technique, have tried to come up with a similar solution for a while.  I like yours very much.

[Fran]

Awesome!! WOW Bertl!!! Great Stuff!

[olfogey]

Neat idea!!................

 

Jim J. -- "olfogey"

[GUY5Y]

Ya,so easy.....coughs and tips hat.

[JonathanReed]

Thank you for the tip.  I will definitely work on it!