help with piping on car seats?

ive got some 0.2mm lead wire that i want to attach to a model car seat for the pipping effect

how should i approach this...i cannot spread a 0.2mm bead of glue on the seat or the wire..then how do i hold it while it sets up?

thanks

I'm trying to come up with a way too. Thought about drilling a hole to insert/glue the wire's end down, then form the wire around the seat area. Tack's a tiny place or two, with superglue. once dry cut the final length, glue it down to hold. Then use thinned white glue along the entire wire to do the final gluing.
Still wondering if one should prepaint the wire, or glue down first. Then airbrush the wire, then paint "up" to it by hand if the piping is a bright lite color. I'm planning on bright green on a black seat. I'm sure I will need to paint the piping white first, then color. This how figure painters do piping on uniforms. Paint piping first then cut in on both sides.

You could also try putty and rolling it into very thin tubes and attach them to the seat. If you're using styrene it will bend and melt with glue quite easily. So you could try bending it to shape first and then pick the points where you think the most important glue points are. Then when that dries you can glue the rest very carefully it will be a clean job.

Try carving a notch along the seat where the piping will go. This could be done with a hobby knife. Run a bead of glue in the notch and then place the wire on top of the notch. I would paint the seat after the piping is in place with the piping color and then build up the seat color up to the piping. Start with a wash for the seat color and, as it builds up against the piping, use the normal, unthinned paint. When done give the seat of semi-gloss to simulated a leather sheen, or flat to simulate fabric, and to even out brush strokes.

You could also secure the wire on top of the notch by holding down with more wire, wrapped around the seat then twisted tight enough to keep the piping wire in the notch. Then, run a thin bead of liquid super glue along the piping wire. If done carefully, the glue will not run along the wrapping wire. When the glue is dried then cut off the wrapping wire with some wire cutters. I do not recommend trying to untwist the wire, just cut it off. Also, if wrapping the wire around the seat doesn't work to hold the piping wire down, then try drilling small holes into the seat near where the piping wire is giving you problems and running the wrapping wire through them. After the piping is glued down then cut off the wrapping wire as usual and fill in the holes with super glue or putty before painting.

Hope this helps.

What is piping along the seats? I'm not sure if this is what u meant but I did this for my gallardo SE.

Used left over sprues, heat them until they're soft and stretch them gently, until they are of the desired thickness. after which, from the start, using thin cement, stick one portion by one portion, allowing the previous portion to dry and cure before attempting the next.

Cheers!

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k286/leafwerks/one%20twentyfour/gallardo%20SE/IMG_1125_zpse0e18d71.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k286/leafwerks/one%20twentyfour/gallardo%20SE/IMG_1126_zpsde242285.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k286/leafwerks/one%20twentyfour/gallardo%20SE/IMG_1128_zps3cc60784.jpg

Here's what I do:

1) use MFH colored wire
2) pipe after painting the seats. You have to be more careful with the superglue.
3) cut each segment to approximate length for the segment of the seat you are working on and bend it into shape for that segment of the seat
4) then put a very small dab of glue on the wire at the beginning of the segment and lay it into place. wait for it to dry.
5) you must make sure the starting point is dry so that you can lift the wire up to place dabs of glue along the length, using a hobby knife with a little superglue on its blade. I just place a couple dabs of glue along the segment.

After a couple models, your work will get neater. See my Ferrari 550 (I think the wire is a little big, but in person it doesn't look too out of scale). The next time, I might try carving a groove around the seat so that the glue and piping can fit in it.

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=892723

+1 on Averion's method. I did the exact same thing for my Gallardo SE. Make sure you use Tamiya's sprue as they are more flexible and can be stretched really thin.
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e114/ddtham/Lamborghini%20Gallardo%20UGR%20Verde%20Ithaca/IMG_0090.jpg

success

0.3 mm wire worked best , i tacked one end with super glue then pulled it tight along one side and tacked it again and so on

then some cheapo runny super glue on a clothes pin driped onto it ..it flows out and covers the join , quickly wipe off any excess

i also added the 2 stripes up the center which are sticthing on the real deal , that was masking tape then some high build primer , whip off the tape and another coat of primer

pics are just primer so far...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/pigbladder/bttf%202011/DSC04945_zpsfd5cf151.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/pigbladder/bttf%202011/DSC04946_zps6c641a01.jpg

Impressive! Nice touch with that mask/primer technique.