Seat Upholstery Questions

[Stinky Pete]

Hello everyone -

I'm new to the site, as well as pretty new to the leather craft. I've done one prior seat, but it wasn't too fancy - just some pleats, stitched and screwed down to the seat pan.

I needed a seat for my other bike so I'm being a bit more ambitious.

Here's an idea of the pan. It has a profiled skirt running around the bottom (16 ga) to keep it from looking like a flat seat pan. It's finish welded and smooth now, but this pic is just to give you an idea.

For the seat top I made a quilted diamond stitch and stretched a leather skirt around the seat top:

So where I'm at now, the seat skirt was re-wet and formed over the contour of the seat pan so I could get the leather skirt tight to the steel seat skirt.

I took this photo while it was still wet. When I checked this morning, the leather has shrunk beautifully to conform to the steel skirt.

So I've gotten this far and I'd hate to screw it up now...so hopefully some of you experts can help me out.

My plan is to:

1. Pull the seat pad and skirt off
2. Mark and drill the seat pan along the bottom of the edge for stitching
3. Glue the pad & leather skirt back onto the seat pan
4. Trim the leather skirt to the match steel skirt profile
5. Cut about 7/8" x 40" strip of leather to fold over the bottom of the seat pan - I'll be stitching through this into the leather and steel skirts. It will be the finished edge running all the way around the bottom of the pan

Here are my questions:

1. The seat pad and seat pan haven't been glued together yet, only wet-formed. The seat pan has a 3/8" high-density foam pad on top, the seat skirt is bare steel but sanded at 40 grit for lots of tooth. Should I use Barge cement or some really strong spray adhesive to glue the pad to the pan?
2. I'm planning on dying the skirt to match the top pad, but wanted to wait until the leather was wet formed to do so. Should I dye now or wait until after I glue? I wasn't sure (if I use Barge) how the glue will affect the leather's ability to take dye.
3. For the finish piece of leather running around the bottom of the skirt - Is there something better to use than leather? I looked at rawhide banding, but I'm not sure it will work the way I want it to. I think it may dry with a sharp edge, not take dye to well, etc. All I have left is some heavy leather (I think 5-6 oz) which won't work well for the edging. I could attempt to skive down, but I don't see that going smoothly over 40". I'd really hate to shell out another $30 for a huge piece of leather I won't use after I cut my finish strips out. I thought maybe someone knows of some type of edge banding (maybe non-leather) available?

There are some other pics of this on my blog, which might help fill in the gaps on what I'm doing: http://garagebuilt.wordpress.com/

Thanks in advance.

[David]

Hello everyone -

I'm new to the site, as well as pretty new to the leather craft. I've done one prior seat, but it wasn't too fancy - just some pleats, stitched and screwed down to the seat pan.

I needed a seat for my other bike so I'm being a bit more ambitious.

Here's an idea of the pan. It has a profiled skirt running around the bottom (16 ga) to keep it from looking like a flat seat pan. It's finish welded and smooth now, but this pic is just to give you an idea.

For the seat top I made a quilted diamond stitch and stretched a leather skirt around the seat top:

So where I'm at now, the seat skirt was re-wet and formed over the contour of the seat pan so I could get the leather skirt tight to the steel seat skirt.

I took this photo while it was still wet. When I checked this morning, the leather has shrunk beautifully to conform to the steel skirt.

So I've gotten this far and I'd hate to screw it up now...so hopefully some of you experts can help me out.

My plan is to:

1. Pull the seat pad and skirt off
2. Mark and drill the seat pan along the bottom of the edge for stitching
3. Glue the pad & leather skirt back onto the seat pan
4. Trim the leather skirt to the match steel skirt profile
5. Cut about 7/8" x 40" strip of leather to fold over the bottom of the seat pan - I'll be stitching through this into the leather and steel skirts. It will be the finished edge running all the way around the bottom of the pan

Here are my questions:

1. The seat pad and seat pan haven't been glued together yet, only wet-formed. The seat pan has a 3/8" high-density foam pad on top, the seat skirt is bare steel but sanded at 40 grit for lots of tooth. Should I use Barge cement or some really strong spray adhesive to glue the pad to the pan?
2. I'm planning on dying the skirt to match the top pad, but wanted to wait until the leather was wet formed to do so. Should I dye now or wait until after I glue? I wasn't sure (if I use Barge) how the glue will affect the leather's ability to take dye.
3. For the finish piece of leather running around the bottom of the skirt - Is there something better to use than leather? I looked at rawhide banding, but I'm not sure it will work the way I want it to. I think it may dry with a sharp edge, not take dye to well, etc. All I have left is some heavy leather (I think 5-6 oz) which won't work well for the edging. I could attempt to skive down, but I don't see that going smoothly over 40". I'd really hate to shell out another $30 for a huge piece of leather I won't use after I cut my finish strips out. I thought maybe someone knows of some type of edge banding (maybe non-leather) available?

There are some other pics of this on my blog, which might help fill in the gaps on what I'm doing: http://garagebuilt.wordpress.com/

Thanks in advance.

Interesting approach,

Normally the pan would have been left flat and foam the thickness of your steel "skirt" would have been added to the top of the pan and formed to suit your butt. Then the seat top

and leather skirt would have been formed over the pan, the leather skirt would have been wet and pulled tight and then drilled and riveted immediately. That way you wouldn't have to

worry about drilling through your seat top (because there was an inch or so of padding under it) and you would have had a MUCH more comfortable seat under your butt.

Dave Theobald.....

Check out the seat tutorial by Roger

Dave

[Stinky Pete]

Interesting approach,

Normally the pan would have been left flat and foam the thickness of your steel "skirt" would have been added to the top of the pan and formed to suit your butt. Then the seat top

and leather skirt would have been formed over the pan, the leather skirt would have been wet and pulled tight and then drilled and riveted immediately. That way you wouldn't have to

worry about drilling through your seat top (because there was an inch or so of padding under it) and you would have had a MUCH more comfortable seat under your butt.

Dave Theobald.....

Check out the seat tutorial by Roger

Dave

Hey Dave -

Thanks for the feedback. I actually used an approach similar to the one you mentioned for my first seat.

I went the route I did on this seat because I had the idea, had never seen it done and thought it was a good solution to covering the hinge and struts on the seat. Believe me - I'm well aware that just there may be a reason I haven't seen it done. As far as padding - it has 3/4" total, which is about as much as I should let myself get accustomed to

As a status update - I ended up running a test strip with the barge cement and it worked well and didn't adversely affect the leather taking dye. So tonight I pulled the seat, drilled the pan and reattached the seat upholstery, with barge cement, to the seat pan. Everything went swimingly well other than I didn't get the seat upholstery down as far on the pan as the original stretching. It looks ok now, but will form wrinkles the more I use it...I'm guessing.

I tend to get a bit bent out of shape about these things, but I'm trying to let this go. I may try to shrink the leather in that spot after I get the skirt stitched to the pan. Alcohol, water and heat from what I've read. it's probably high of the destination by about 3/8"...I really need to relax on this.

Btw - checked out your site Dave. Great work and I think it's awesome you and your son were working with SPS back in the hey-day. Very cool man.

[Stinky Pete]

Seat's done - ended up stretching, then dying and then gluing down.

I skived down some of the heavy leather for the banding around the bottom. The rawhide was too difficult to work with and seemed to seep dye when it got wet.

Anyway - here's the finished product. I'm pleased with the results for my second seat.