Best viewed in 800x600

This project started when a friend sent me a brand new Raid steering wheel, to be re-covered in classic gray to match his 911.

Raid makes beautiful wheels. Well engineered with high quality components, they feel good and have the potential to look extraordinary.

Unfortunately, their leatherwork skills is not on par with the rest in my opinion:

The deeply sculpted shape is unfortunately covered with a pieced together cover.

Most of the joints are just glued together

So, in a moment of complete stupidity, I convinced myself (and the client), that the best way to cover this steering wheel, would be to create a molded, one piece leather cover, for both the rim and the hub.

At that point, my wife should have hit me over the head with something heavy.

This is the most frustrating piece of leather, that I have made at this point.

 

The process started like this:

By wrapping and molding the classic gray leather over the hub and rim

Then, a lot of trimming brings you to this:

Once everything is stitched and tucked in, you get this:

The horn buttons are covered in matching leather and the airbag cover is designed not to hinder the deployment in case of an accident.