Topic: Replacement camera covering or leather.

[LT]

I'm looking to recover a camera and am having difficulty sourcing the material. I'm after some brown or tan adhesive-backed material (doesn't have to be real leather). I can't get a precut kit for the camera so will have to do this myself.

I've contacted the cameraleather.com and aki asahi but neither can help me.

Anyone managed to source similar stuff or know where I might be able to get some?

[moominsean]

i'm surprised cameraleather can't help. don't they sell in uncut sheets?

http://www.cameraleather.com/online_ordering.htm#sheets

though maybe just no brown...

here?

http://www.micro-tools.de/en/Leather-Leatherette/

[DS]

I bought some leather from a book-binders shop that is very thin. If you use the latex glue they use you can brush that on the back of the leather and leave it a few minutes to go tacky- then it's basically self adhesive.

[Mike (happyforest)]

Agree with DS you might find something from a Book binders.

This site http://www.homecrafts.co.uk/ has some leatherette not self adhesive though.  Also has a photography section although not cheap.

Mike

[tkmedia]

Material can be tricky sometime. I did a few re covers in the past. I removed the leather from camera, used masking painters tape to cover the camera leather area. Some area I just cut the tape to size. Other harder to do areas used a pen to draw the outline on tape, then transfer the tape to leather, check, use ruler redraw w pen to fix straight areas if necessary, then cut.

[Francois]

I actually did something similar for a Yashica FR.
I took out the actual leather (I should say the material that used to be leather) and glued it to a sheet of paper to make it easier to handle. Made a photocopy of it to make a pattern. Measured the camera and adapted the distorted copy. Cut out the pattern and tried it on the camera. Once that fits, I cut the leather, fitted it. Put some double face tape on the back of the leather, trim it. Check the fit once again. If everything's OK, just peel and stick.

As for a good leather source, check charity shops for old leather purses. Some of them have really nice soft leather... just make sure you shop with your wife unless you want the odd look

[sethasaurus]

Handbags!
Some 6'4" guy dressed in black just walked into the charity store down the road and bought three handbags...
I am not ashamed!

Actually, I'm looking for a nice little snakeskin number to recover my zorki.

[Heather]

Bookbinding leather is nice and very thin compared to handbag leather but it's not always easy to find enough identical scraps or scraps big enough to cover a camera unfortunately :/ Unless you buy a whole skin which costs £50-£75 

I'll point out that MicroTools are usually at Photographica but I don't think they bring along their leatherette stuff... maybe you could email them before hand and say you're interested and ask them to bring some along - shouldn't take up too much space in their suitcases

[LT]

Heather - I just bought a whole tanned goatskin sold as bookbinding material at 0.6mm thickness from eBay for £11. There are quite a few at this price.

It turns out that purse leather etc is far too thick - camera leather should be 0.8mm at the thickest.

[LT]

for those interested, I got the skin from http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/dolbenleathers

really cheap leathers that are seconds for other uses, but perfect for camera coverings.

[LT]

and one more tip - A kind fellow 'tog on another forum donated to me some sheets of this stuff It is a super thin double sided tape that is used to stick body trim to cars.  I've given it a practice run today and it works perfectly - worth trying if you are thinking of doing this yourself. It needs dampening a bit to allow repositioning when you apply the covering, but then sets very nicely indeed.

[Pete_R]

I use A4 size double sided adhesive sheets. Several available on eBay. Easier than using rolls I've found. Search for 'double sided a4 adhesive'.

[LT]

the stuff I've got is in sheets Peter - probably a similar stuff.