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timesofplenty

"saddle" Construction Question

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I've been trying to figure this out for some time, have searched other forums, and haven't found any info.

Back in the 1930s bicycle and motorcycle seats were called saddles, and had a complex (to me at least) construction. There was a metal pan, sandwiched by layers of canvas, padding (felt, horsehair, or sponge rubber), and ~2-4oz leather or "artificial leather", often with a binding sewn around the edge, sometimes not.

I've been able to recover these sufficiently with modern padding and some glue to hold the top and bottom leather in place in order to install the binding and then stitch (picture below).

I'd like to be able to do it with the layers of canvas and without glue as they were done originally. I can form the leather, but holding everything in place and getting the binding stitched has me stumped.

Given similarity of these seats to "saddles" and seeing the large the body of knowledge and experience here I thought I'd put the question to leatherworker.

So the question is: how were these done originally and how can I do it now? I've been noodling this for months with no insight. Does anyone have any ideas or experience with this or something similar? Thanks for looking and for your input :)


Originals:


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One I did:


06212015_056sm.jpg


06212015_059sm.jpg

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