Please help! Motorcycle solo seat question!

[ValinorKings]

Ok so I have all the supplies I need and I pretty much understand everything about what goes into this project EXCEPT one very important thing: How do I attach the side covers to the actual seat pan? I've thought about an eyelet lacing system and I've heard tell of riveting it to the pan (a la Paul Cox). The pan is 10g steel. I feel like the riveting would be the strongest but if so I gotta admit I have no idea how that process works. Do I need to drill the pan? Is it necessary to use a pneumatic rivet gun? Aside from that one detail I got it down. Any help would be greatly apprectiated because there is NO GOOD HELP on the internet or anywhere that I could find. Thanks y'all!

[JohnD]

Rivetting is probably the most common way. You don't need a pnuematic rivet gun, but you will need to drill holes in the pan.

Basically, you drill the holes in your pan, put in a rivet or two in one edge to secure it, then proceed around the seat pulling the leather tight, punch your next hole in the leather and rivet it to the pan. I usually will start at the front or rear of the seat and alternate sides with each rivet, checking that the top of your seat stays centered. You'll want to wet the sides for thicker leather and really pull on it. You can really get the sides smooth by pulling it tight and working all the wrinkles to the bottom of the pan, then cut all the wrinkles and folds off and smooth the bottom with a bone folder or some such. A nice touch is to cover the bottom with wool felt from a craft or fabric store.

Another way, probably better for the solo seats, is to secure the top to the bottom piece of leather.

Cut your top piece. Cut your bottom piece, including all holes for mounting hardware. I usually glue the bottom to the pan with 3M spray adhesive. then I spray and glue the top, shape it to the pan and stitch around the sides.

Some folks do this without the glue. Some folks rivet the bottom to the pan before stitching. Some folks use lace instead of stitching, but thats all up to you.

Hope this helps, have fun.

John

[ValinorKings]

Thanks a lot man! That totally makes sense. I'll let y'all know how it turns out!

[randyandclaudia]

David Theobald has posted some info that I'm certain would help you. It's under the showoff section http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=6619 His work is sweet! JohnD's advice is also on target. Let us see when you are finished. Have an awesome day.

[Scary Leatherworks]

Here's my 2 cents. John and Randy have already said about everything. You should go to the motorcycle section here for research. There are some new tutorials just posted. WET the sides as John said. It will allow you to stretch the leather tighter and get out more wrinkles. What I do when I have a steel pan is to drill my holes the size of my rivets but on my first go around with the fitting I hold the leather on with sheet metal screws that way if I can't get out some of the wrinkles (always happens to me) I can let the leather dry and "set" then back out the screw re-wet and pull out the wrinkle. only then do I put in the rivets.

Scott