STEELBELT Seat Belts

Eduard, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Mark Davies

Eduard's STEELBELT Seat Belts are available online from Squadron.com

My first thought when I saw these belts arrive for review was “Why on earth make them from steel?” This was because I had visions of trying to cut through the steel PE like that found in some Dragon kits, which was quite thick and as tough as hell to cut away from the fret and work with. As it turns out, these new steel belts from Eduard are incredibly thin and easy to work with. I have copied part of Vladimir Sulc’s editorial in INFO Eduard, May 2016 which give’s Eduard’s rationale behind their new seatbelt line called STEELBELTS:

“...here are the basic facts: they are etched out of steel 0.1mm thick. Most of the belts, except for the buckles, are etched to half the thickness of the material, and the end thickness of these ‘fabric’ parts is 0.04mm. The buckles are the full thickness of the material, the 0.1mm.

In my opinion this thickness eliminates the most basic of optical shortcomings of all the other belts, weather etched or fabric (paper) and others, with the possible exception of Superfabric belts. This shortcoming is the thickness of the belt itself and it causes a certain difficulty in the installation process. STEELBELTS are very thin, incredibly easy to shape, while still remaining stiff, and look extremely realistic in the model. These belts are designed to be as simple as possible to make them easy to apply and to give them as much appeal to as many modellers as possible.

For reasons of maintaining the advantageous thickness and workability, we refrained from attaining relief detail by etching away layers of material. Relief is achieved through a somewhat complicated application of colours, and to that was added a weathering-slash-staining effect. The stitching was added on through printing, and these details are so fine that they need to be observed to be believed. That’s a good thing, I think.”

Vladimir is not exaggerating, as the STEELBELTS are indeed very thin, with the shadowed relief effect working extremely well. They do seem to be quite an advance on the pre-coloured brass belts previously offered. I also feel that they have a distinct crispness and precision in their printing that is better than Eduard’s Superfabric range of seatbelts, although they cannot match the convenience of the Superfabric belts. This said, I think that the little extra effort involved with their removal from the fret and fitting to the seat will give a superior result to the quick & easy Superfabric option.

Superb quality is an Eduard hallmark, and this is certainly the case with these items, from packaging and instructions to the actual components. Each set comes packed with a large card stiffener sealed in cellophane. Within are the printed instructions and a PE fret carrying the seatbelts. The instructions are also downloadable from Eduard’s website.

The following images combine Eduard’s CAD illustration (top-left), my scan of the actual STEELBELTS (top-right), and their instructions (bottom):

73034 – Seatbelts Luftwaffe WWII Fighters: 

73035 – Seatbelts USAAF WWII:

The instructions state five sets, but there are ten, five buff coloured and five in olive drab.

73036 – Seatbelts RAF Early:

672025 – Seatbelts Luftwaffe WWII Bombers:

This set also includes four sets of lap belts (Part #7) that are not mentioned in the instructions.

Eduard’s STEELBELTS are a real boon for modellers in “The One True Scale”, offering a significant improvement on previous brass coloured belts. The number of harnesses supplied with each set makes them good value too. This probably holds true for larger scales too, but I have not seen examples of these.  

I highly recommended all of the sets reviewed here.

Thanks to Eduard for the samples and images.

Review Text & Images Copyright © 2016 by Mark Davies
Page Created 30 August, 2016
Last updated 1 September, 2016

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