Might Need A Little Help

[8thsinner]

I may have a customer interested in a bike seat.

Currently he is looking around to give himself ideas of what he might want.

Now, this is similar to the bike seat in question.

http://static.blogo.it/motoblog/kawasaki-zxr-1200-mod-2009/Kawasaki_ZRX_1200_01.jpg

I don't know what his actual model is, But it's fairly plain shaped.

His first issue is that it is uncomfortable. I would need a better foam, or additional layer of foam on top of his shaped foam???

Recommendation for buying?

Second issue, it's a fairly plain bike in reality, I want to offer something just to dress it up a little, now my tooling is pretty indecent so I won't be offering that, I may pop in tomorrow and ask someone else to tool for me though...

I can probably just get him to pay for lacing the edges nice.

I am worried about a few things,

Not having the tools to pull this off

I don't mind spending his money and taking no drawings for tools so whats my basic outlay. I am guessing, dremel or drill, rivets, rivet machine thingy (whats that called?) Sharp knife for foam cutting I can handle...I have looked through the tutorials

I know I am better going for 10oz perhaps 8oz to stay in his budget....

This is the way I would go about charging

Leather costs including lace, £50 not including post, by jt bachelors, 3.5mm shoulder...That would do right?

Time involved

Tools (let me know) (I can borrow a dremel short term)

I will be looking through this section of the forum to try and answer my own questions but I wanted to get in here too cause you guys know better than I what I might not know what to look for...

Thanks a million guys.

[Spinner]

Hey Sinner,

If it's the factory seat, you won't need a dremel or rivets. The pans are made from a medium density ABS material and the factory staples the covers to the pan. I have done 2 like this so far and they staple fairly easily with a good heavy duty stapler. I'd only go with 8 oz. maximum on the leather as you'll be doing quite a bit of wet molding to get it on there. If it's just a basic recover & dress-up, use the original vinyl to make yourself a template to start with. Once it's all put together, stretch it to shape on the top and pull down over the bottom edge. From there, use a good glue (high strength contact cement works well) to get it in position and holding and then staple through the leather and pan. You want to make sure to use staples that are slightly longer than 1 layer of leather plus the pan thickness to ensure they get through and hold. The foam and outer layer of leather will be enough to keep them from contacting the rider.

For extra padding, it's a pretty common practice to dish out the foam where the rider(s) sit and add a layer of closed cell foam or light-medium density memory foam. The new, better foam should provide a more comfortable ride. If need be, yuo can buy different thicknesses of it and dish out a one inch deep section for medium density and then lay a 1/4 inch light density on top of that and simply feather it in. Foam can be glued to foam using 3M 90 spray glue. As for cutting the foam, knives work but will leave choppy, messy edges. A good, cheap alternative is to get an electric bread/carving knife from your local chain store like Target or Walmart. They usually sell for about $12-15 new and have dual blades that smoothly sheer the foam making it cleaner and easier to shape.

Hope all this helps!

Chris

[8thsinner]

Yes that helps a lot thanks.

Means I have a little less research to do than I thought I would need...

For the knife I was actually gonna use a spare cut throat, that cuts through sponge anyhow like butter... lol

I have a stapler too so thats easy, and like you said that glue, well I know someone who works with 3m...

Cool.