Leather Engine Compartment Flap/Cover

Here are a few examples of the Locomobile showing what was provided in regards to the cover for the engine compartment "back in the day".

Steam Traction World provided us with a plywood enclosure that fits very snug to the body and frame. 

I have discovered that this is an issue for me. When steaming down in our yearly Christmas Parade here in Topsail Beach, NC, the engine and boiler compartment gets very toasty. In fact with the plywood panel installed it got so hot that it melted or caused to greatly deform the electronic box I use to house my boiler level controls.

My solution to this was to basically run without the plywood panel. This poses a somewhat unsafe situation too. I have had on occasion a packing nut on the feed pump become loose and water can get sprayed on to your legs or a fitting seeping hot water too that wasn't tight. Therefore taking insight from original examples of the Locomobile I decided to make my own leather flap. This allows for some protection and much better ventilation of the engine/boiler compartment.

My first task was to use some construction paper to "paper doll" the flap.

I used this to layout the outlines on the leather I purchased from eBay and cut the leather to size.

I then used some tools for punching stitching holes into leather and began stitching everything together. On the bottom of the flap I did stitch in a piece of 12 ga steel to add weight to help keep the flap in place while diving.

The finished product installed:

I have tested it out and so far, it is working as I expected. 

Happy Steaming :)