This cave age like guide is practical as most forgotten to use the oldest material – leather. It is very easy, tricky thing. You may ask why one need to create own camera case when there are such readily available. Reason is cost. You can easily create 10 camera cases at the price same quality leather camera case are sold. Most importantly, you can emboss your name, custom design. It is not exactly impossible to handle leather craft work for who are used with other craft. Here is how to create DIY leather camera case.
How To Create DIY Leather Camera Case : Needed Materials
Leather craftwork does need custom tools, but you can easily use hobby tools.
- We need around 3.5 mm thick leather sheet as main leather
- You can optionally have 2.5 mm thin leather sheet for decoration by stitching
- Lining for leather
- Waxed nylon for stitching, needle
- Buckets for soaking in water
- Leather dye – They are liquid and colours are like light brown, dark brown, black etc.
May be some leather craft work websites can help you.
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How To Create DIY Leather Camera Case
You need to cut template from leather and lining. You can use engineering drawing sheet to design the template by placing camera and tracing some parts – like the bottom part. Other parts you have to think like normal cloth tailoring. Leather is like cloth but it can be hardened, embossed, edges can be bevelled. First try the designing part with A4 computer print papers, glue them to have a trial.
In order to make leather moulded, you need to soak the needed pieces like the part for grip in water for few hours. After soaking in water, whatever shape, emboss, bevelling the edges you’ll do when it will get dried up it will remain forever. So you can place a computer print design over the wet leather and trace it to get embossed.
Now how to mould wet leather on your camera! Put the camera’s body inside a leakproof transparent plastic bag. Cut lining like the leather but slightly bigger than the leather. Wrap the camera’s grip like parts which needs moulding with wet leather. Bevel the edges of the leather. Stitching groover is used at the sewing create groove before sewing. Let the thing get dried.
It is not that you need camera’s body to mould, we gave you the idea. In the same way, you will emboss your name or camera’s name on some other part of wet leather.
When they will get dried, spray adhesive back of the leather pieces and stick the lining. Thereafter sew them. The bottom part of camera’s cover is typically held with a screw of same thread that of tripod. If you are new, you have to do some research around how to make holes to place buttons on leather. Thereafter you’ll dye and polish.
