Pressure box seal

On to the pressure box seal…

I wanted to try a leather seal for the pressure box, so I gathered my scissors, contact cement and a strip of split leather.

First I laid the leather strip over the rim of the pressure box and cut it to approximate length, leaving a little extra for final trimming.
I found that the scissors didn't work nearly as well as a new razor blade. The razor blade was easy to push down and make a straight clean slice. I cut all the corners at 45s.

I then applied contact cement to the rim and the cut strips of leather, waited about 10 minutes then pressed the strips into place.

For the rim of the lid, I chose to go with chamois, but since I didn't have it in a nicely cut strip like the leather, I had to first make my own strips. I have a rotary paper cutting board, and I found that it did an excellent job of making straight cuts through the chamois.

I repeated the length cutting and cement process and here's how it looks:

Overall, it seems to only add about an 1/8" (at most) to the height when the lid is in place:

If it proves to be an adequate seal, I'll probably stain the ouside edges to match the exterior a little more closely. If it doesn't work well, I guess I can razor-blade it off and try a more synthetic alternative.

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