Redoing an old seat?????

[Uncle Stretch]

I have seen seats recovered where you have two pans together. Slide them apart and with the help of some spray glue and vinyl they are easy. Has anybody come up with a way to recover one where you have just one metal pan? In the old days they sewed two pieces of material together making a pocket and slid the pan in and then sewed the outside in the back. I thought about JB welding some hard rubber around the bottom edge and then stapleing the material to that. Has anybody come up with something that would work better than that?

 

[bmxerpete]

Uncle Stretch,

All of the seats I've redone have been either the single pan type banana seats or regular bmx style seats, and I just use 3M upholstery glue on both the seatpan/ foam and the underside of the vinyl and they hold up fine. I stretch the material and get it as tight as possible and I haven't had any come apart.

 

[Uncle Stretch]

I really thought it might come loose from sitting on it and the movement. I may give that a try tomorrow.Thanks

 

[sensor]

try giving wingman a pm.....i know hes done some really nice looking ones

 

[HotRodJen]

have you guys re-foamed your seats ? if so whats a good foam to go with and where can i get it ?
i've re-covered my seats but i need a little more cusion on them

 

[Uncle Stretch]

They actually make gel seat covers that you could take apart and use for the foam. Should be real comfy :wink:

 

[Flame Jigger]

Here are acouple I've done. The first one I had to stitch 2 pieces of leather together like the old cover was done.

The second one is a bananna seat that I used pop rivets to hold the material in place.

I got a piece of faom from a friend of mine who does upholstery work for the springer seat and just used a couple thicknesses of carpet pad for the bananna seat.

 

[B607]

have you guys re-foamed your seats ? if so whats a good foam to go with and where can i get it ?
i've re-covered my seats but i need a little more cusion on them

I looked all over for good foam. Finally bought a pad used for camping that is meant to go under your sleeping bag. I got it at Chinamart and it was cheap. Gary

 

[Uncle Stretch]

Yeah maybe you could buy one of those foam things that goes on your bed with that memory foam and then when you rode it would remember the contours of your seat. :shock:

 

[HotRodJen]

thanks a bunch ! will get to wallymart and pick it up

 

[bmxerpete]

Hey guys, and Jen, go dumpster diving behind any upholstery shop, especially if they do auto or marine upholstery. The boat place I worked at threw out tons of foam scraps that were plenty big enough for bike seats. If you went in and asked nicely they would probably give you the scraps just to save having to throw them out. Same goes for the vinyl scraps, what's useless to them is usually plenty big enough for us.
If I had thought ahead I would have stocked up before I got laid off. :?

 

[Wingman]

Hey,
I use Large Copper Rivits like brooks uses. I use a Hi Density foam ... 1/8 / 1/4 thick.

The key to success is that ya gota make a mold to pre form the leather.

If ya do not pre form the leather ..... good luck.

Brooks pre formes all their stuff. I have molds 4 pearson saddles & upon request I could make molds 4 anything.
It requires your seat pan to pull a mold .

I actualy used the inner pan to make another seat .......

I tried to talk about this a while back BUT Nobody seemed interested

 

[maddogrider]

How do you form the leather? Does that mean get it wet and stretch it over the mold?

 

[Wingman]

NO, u get it wet & put it in the mold

 

[Uncle Stretch]

I saw the brooks guy steam his in a mold. that is how they do saddles. I thought about doing a mold out of wood. taking some oak and routing it all out. Hummmm differant hobby :roll:

 

[buzzy]

 

[stepper]

For those who don't follow the Space Bike Build Off, here is the seat I did for CherryLiner:
__________________________

Originally I had planned on finding a place to reupholster it. After 2 shops denying my service I finally found someone that would do it for $75.00. I would have let him do the job but he seemed very reluctant to take on the task making me doubt his services. So instead, I decided I was going to do it myself. I searched around for some possible materials to use when I finally decided to use a two layer cotton rag that looked like plain old white t-shirt material, craft foam for minimalistic padding and some Shellac to finish it off. This is what I came up with:

After adding several layers of Shellac I decided that I wanted the seat to be a bit darker so I painted it black, sanded it down a bit and applied more Shellac.
Rivets were added as a finishing touch.

 

[Uncle Stretch]

Boy Stepper you and Buzzy did an excellent job on your recovers. I used a little foam ...some felt to cover it the first time and then the Python for the top . I used the 3m super 77 . Man that stuff stuck. I'm thinking it wont come loose. Wish I had taken cool pics like yall did but I was kinda thinking it might not work. :lol:

 

[Quanah]

What would be a good choice for replacing the seatbar eyelets, after recovering a banana seat, a grommet kit like for tarps?

 

[Uncle Stretch]

if you dont mind round they will work and are easy to install. there are places here called Jo Ann's its a craft store that has an unbelievable ammount of stuff like that.