Seats and seatbelts are the two biggest things that are visible in the cockpit. Eduard has been trying to get the look of seatbelts to look like the real thing with the minimal amount of effort for the modeler. They’ve gone from having unpainted photo etch belts, then they were pre-painted, then there was Fabric and lately the Super Fabric. Well enter the latest addition to the seatbelt line, STEEL.

This set contains EIGHT sets of seatbelts for aircraft such as the Bf-109, FW-190 or Me-262. But what is so special about them? Well to start out the belts are .1mm thick at the thickest, such as areas around the buckles. The ‘fabric’ portion is actually only .04mm thick making this realistically thin and easy to shape. They are slightly weathered to make them less stark.

Does it work? One of the biggest detractors from the pre-painted seatbelts was that when you bent them to a realistic shape the paint tended to flake off which required you to prime and repaint them anyhow. Then there was the issue of them ‘popping’ back to shape as the metal didn’t like to be bent so much. Well the thinner steel parts makes bending them to shape a breeze and the thinness makes them realistic looking. I didn’t have an issue with any of my belts flaking.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Eduard and IPMS/USA for the review copy. You can obtain yours by contacting them directly at www.eduard.com or your local hobby shop or online retailer.