[Arjay Bee]

WoW!

What a difference.

I am sure your ME will come up nicely as well. A big step away from the faux camo that you have in the picture :-)

Generally I am not in favour of removing the leatherette from cameras. However, there are some makes and models (Contax, Yashica and Minolta usually) which suffer from poor coverings and I see no problem with tricking them out. Or any other camera which needs a new cover. I have done the covers on 2 Contax 137 MA's, a Yashica FX3 and I can see that i will need to do my RTS and Minolta XD7 in the not too distant future. Hmmm? Now what colour/style to choose? None of my Pentax, Canon, Fujica or Nikon cameras are even close to requiring such treatment.

As I said before the edges of the film door were very oxidised/rusted so any resurface was an improvement and the leatherette was quite discoloured. Well worth doing in this case but I have kept the old OEM leatherette to be able to retrofit if needed by someone in the future. If someone wanted the original look it would probably be a better choice to purchase lookalike material from Hugo Studio cos the originals are a bit ugly. I think I have value added in this camera's case.

Looks really good to me

Thank you Vendee - I like the way adding personal choices allows cameras to acquire added personality according to owner's taste. I use a K3 Prestige as my digital camera so I like getting something looking a bit different.

---------- Post added 04-01-21 at 01:20 PM ----------

Hot. Damn.
That is gorgeous.

Thank you for the positive comment Benz3ne - I like it too.

[Lhorn]

That MX looks awesome. Love it.

[Sam_I_am]

I am sure your ME will come up nicely as well. A big step away from the faux camo that you have in the picture :-)

I almost cried when I found this camera. That faux camo is also made of felt...

I do have a very nice Argus that someone did the leatherette in red. Really stands out.

[richard0170]

As I said before the edges of the film door were very oxidised/rusted so any resurface was an improvement and the leatherette was quite discoloured. Well worth doing in this case but I have kept the old OEM leatherette to be able to retrofit if needed by someone in the future. If someone wanted the original look it would probably be a better choice to purchase lookalike material from Hugo Studio cos the originals are a bit ugly. I think I have value added in this camera's case.

Nothing wrong with what you have done and I think you have probably added to the value and at the very least made it more sellable (Not that you are likely to sell it after your work methinks!). As you say the original was discoloured and so would have needed some kind of treatment anyway. I am not against fancy leatherette, my Minolta XD-s has a black snake skin finish and one of the 137MAs a maroon one. I just do not have any Pentax cameras where the leatherette requires any kind of treatment or replacement.

[Sam_I_am]

My new leatherette just came in the mail. My attempt to install it will be sometime later this week.

[Vendee]

My new leatherette just came in the mail. My attempt to install it will be sometime later this week.

Is the colour like you expected it to be? Mine went on fine, obviously making sure the body was squeaky clean to start with.

[Arjay Bee]

Thank you for your comment, Lhorn
Yep, clean as possible. Wooden toothpicks are good for getting crumbs of glue out of channels and around sockets. I finished off with isopropyl alcohol which really left a pristine surface. When sticking down the leatherette I used a wooden icypole or paddle pop stick to push down the edges and get the edges really butted well against the moulded metal of the camera. I sharpened a bevelled edge so I could really get into the corners. I watched a few you tube videos and some jobs looked a bit ugly due to the leather 'running up the walls' a bit like badly laid lino.

I look forward to seeing your finished cover Sam.

[Sam_I_am]

Is the colour like you expected it to be? Mine went on fine, obviously making sure the body was squeaky clean to start with.

Funny you ask. When I took it out of the box it looked black, out in the light it is definitely green.

[j0n4hpk]

Thanks to all of you for this thread, guys.

[Arjay Bee]

Just recovered my M3 DS in Hugo Studio olive leather.

From the Gear Porn thread - this is the beautiful job by Huss - looks beautiful!!!! Deserves to be referenced in this thread.

[Skux]

Hi everyone, here's my first custom cover! Navy blue lizard texture from Aki-Asahi. Such a cool way to personalise your camera.



More to come!

[Vendee]

Hi everyone, here's my first custom cover! Navy blue lizard texture from Aki-Asahi. Such a cool way to personalise your camera.



More to come!

That looks really nice.

[Huss]

From the Gear Porn thread - this is the beautiful job by Huss - looks beautiful!!!! Deserves to be referenced in this thread.

[stevebrot]

Hi everyone, here's my first custom cover! Navy blue lizard texture from Aki-Asahi. Such a cool way to personalise your camera.



More to come!

Very nice! Aki-Asahi makes excellent kits. The color looks good on the Spotmatic.


Steve

[Skux]

More custom Spotmatics! More photos at this gallery and info on my Reddit post.