Newbie Seat Builder -Advice and Opinions Please

[jdwintx]

Hi All,

I've been lurking on this site for a month or so now while I've been working on my carving and lacing skills. I am now ready to tackle building a seat and I need some advice on the pan I'm using from some of the pro's here. I am making a large solo seat for my roadstar and the stock pan is made of 1/4" or so hard ABS plastic. The "pleather" cover was attached to it using staples but I want to rivet the new cover on. The question is can I use the stock pan or should I have a metal one fabricated for riveting. I'm sure I'll have a ton more questions as I work through this and will post pics on my journey. I appreciate all the help I can get. Thanks

[azrider]

I don't consider myself a pro by any stretch of the imagination, but I recently recovered my V-star seat, using the stock pan. I did buy a heavy duty staple gun, and it didn't work at all. I used the cheapest rivet gun they had at home depot, and drilled a hole every 2 inches around the plastic pan. I also replaced the stock foam with two layers of an exercise mat, and the seat is much more comfortable now. I only have about 400 miles on the bike since I finished it, but so far it is holding up well. My pan had an area cut out to allow the electronics enough room, and I imagine a metal pan would have to duplicate that, which might make it more expensive.

Good luck on your project, look forward to seeing it.

[WaG35]

I have yet to build a seat, but i tried making a fiberglass pan for my Roadstar and I can tell you that is not an easy bike to make a pan for. I thinkg the stock pan would take rivets just fine, it is pretty sturdy.

[leathernut]

using pop rivets in a stock plastic pan is fine.for added security use washers with them they lock in tight good luck.

[jdwintx]

Thanks guys, appreciate the input. I saw an post about the washer item so I'll research that and it sounds like a good idea. I've pulled the old seat apart and broken down the sewing so I have some rough templates to begin work on. That should keep me busy for a day or so.

[MADMAX22]

I think one of the hardest parts for a seat like this is doing the foam. Im still working on getting mine done. Ive got a roadliner myslef, seat looks allmost the same.

If you get one of the electric staplers, a nice strong one it will go thru and hold. Rivets also work very good and hold it very well with the plastic but be sure thats your final setup because once you rivet it its a pain in the butt to undo because the rivets spin when you do to drill them out.

[jdwintx]

Thanks for the advice so far.

Ok, so here was step 2, making the patterns. If anyone has any advice on how to do it different or better, I'm all ears. After I removed all the stitching I ironed and folded the different pieces in half and used some heavy duty material to trace the half seat on making sure it was folded along the factory middle line. I then used that half pattern to make the second half. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, however the material on the factory seat was stretched out of shape so I guessed. I then used those halves to trace my cut pattern for the top of the saddle and cut out the practice template. My question here is: What is the preferred method for cutting the piece? I used a razor knife but didn't like how uneven the edges were. (they weren't bad, but it seems to me they could be cleaner). What does everyone use?

Edited April 20, 2009 by jdwintx

[Scary Leatherworks]

I did a similair seat with a plastic pan. I used a crafstsman staple gun the "new" shaped one that shoots staples and very small brads. it worked ok for temporary holding until I was satisfied with the placement of everything and it was stretched well. Just easier to pop a staple to re-stetch than it is to remove a rivet.

[TroyS]

If your seat pan is ABS Plastic, you can go to Harbor Freight and buy a crown stapler for less than $30 (check it out here) that will do a fine job with the staples. If you MUST use rivets, be sure you put a washer between the seat foam and pan or your rivets could work there way through your plastic seat pan.

If you need more info, contact me.

Troy

[jdwintx]

Thanks Troy, appreciate the heads up on the stapler.

I've cut all the leather for the seat from my templates and scribed out my lacing line 1/8" from the edges. I am going to be doing a basketweave with 1/8" lace. From what I've read on the site there seems to be several different thoughts on how to space your holes for the lacing. The perimeter of my seat is 5'7" so 67 inches. Here's what I have read regarding that.

1. Space the holes the same distance apart as the width of the lace, so 1/8" apart. = 536 holes for the top.

2. Measure the perimeter and divide by 100. That would put the spacing a little more than 1/2" apart so about 134 holes for the top.

3. other variations are just spacing evenly at different increments of an inch. (i.e. 1/4", every other 1/8", etc..)

I don't mind puching the holes, I'm just concerned that at the 1/8" spacing this leaves very little leather between holes and I would be concerned about pulling through the holes.

[azrider]

When I did mine, I spaced it at 1/4 apart. The key for the basketweave is to make sure you have the same number of holes in the top and sides. The weave came out pretty well with that spacing.

[jdwintx]

Thanks, that's what I finally did. Spaced it at 1/4, and now I'm matching the panels to ensure they have the same amount of holes and equal spacing. I hope to begin tooling today or tomorrow and start lacing this weekend. I'll post some pic's as things develop.

[ryankim3612]

.......................JD..?.....!..

.....lets SEE the seat!!

[jdwintx]

Sorry all, this was an old post and didn't update it with the seat once it was done. Here is a picture of the seat after completion, remember it's 4 yrs and about 10K miles old. The funny thing is I'm remaking a new one now, I've included a couple of pics of that, just need to finish punching the sides and lacing it up.