I received a call from a fellow in Florida who was requesting a seat for a bike that is on this month's cover of Cycle Source..... He wanted a black seat, no tooling, with all the fancy lacing that I put on seats. Pretty simple order except that I have all but quit trying to make black seats. The color always ALWAYS rubs off regardless of the dye used. SO.........I called my local Tandy and was invited to come look at a non toolable, factory dyed, black, veg tanned 8 oz. hide. The leather felt peculiar but was plyable and seemed like it might work, do I gave it a try. The results are below.....I tried to put a makers mark on the back; but could not even mark the hide with a 2 lb. maul. If you get the seat wet, the water beads like a freshly waxed car. The more I worked with it, the more the leather felt like rubber.....yeah, I know, pretty wierd. But I think the results were OK. I attached a close up of the seat fron so you can see the texture of the hide.
Best to all,
Dave Theobald