Skinning a leg or two

I got thee 3 legs assembled and sanded. Even got the outer legs routed with 1/8” groove. I also go the smooth handy-board cut, beveled, and glued in place.

Now that all that was finished up, I decided to take a page out of Dan’s book and skin my legs to cut down on dozens and dozens of hours of bondoing and sanding. I decided to start with the third leg to get a little practice. It is smaller, less complicated and the top side will likely be trimmed down so some errors will be able to be dealt with easily.

I am using water based contact cement. After applying the glue I sandwiched the whole thing between some scrap wood and clamped it tight. In a day, I’ll take the clamps off and see what I have.

I used a piece of .020” styrene I have for vacuum forming. Here is laid out.

I cut traced the center lag on the plastic with pencil and used regular scissors to cut it out. I left a bit of material around the edges. That way, I can ensure complete coverage; I’ll trim it later.

I would definately reccomend not using the roller. It made a lot of air bubbles and driping on the sides. I ended up using one of those gray sponge brushes. I will use the sponge brushes for the rest of the leg skinning.

Lastly I clamped it up. I’ll pull it apart tomorrow to see how well it worked.