Old Leatherworker Might Attempt First Motorcycle Seat

[Cyberthrasher]

Foam N' More is where I ordered mine at the recommendation of David Theobold. I got a half sheet of the regular neoprene which was $41.60 shipped. This is the one they recommend for motorcycle seats on their site as well.

[aguilerag]

Have any of you ordered from badseedcycles.com? I heard they were pretty good.

[benlilly1]

FoamandMore and FoamforYou are one and the same.

[REDTAILHAWK]

Hey, Benlilly1 and Cyberthrasher,

So if you have $70 in material costs in a motorcycles seat, about how many hours do you figure you have wrapped up in making one?

Hello Aguilerag,

I hadn't heard about Badseed Cycles. I'll have to check them out. Thanks for letting us know.

[Cyberthrasher]

4 - 6 hours to lace it up

couple hours to dye at least (depending on how much color)

the rest is tooling and assembly time.

If you're looking for pricing, I wouldn't let it out the door for less than about $300 for a plain dyed seat with a blended fade. One color plain, maybe $275. Outside of ebay, the market is pretty standard here for custom seats. Unfortunately there are a lot of other people out there on ebay and etsy selling down for really cheap and destroying the market. Luckily there are still a lot of smart guys out there building bikes who know that cheap only hurts down the road.

[REDTAILHAWK]

Well here is my first attempt at a seat. Let me know where I messed up.

[benlilly1]

Redtail, That looks really great! Nice detail, it pops!

[REDTAILHAWK]

Thanks Benlilly1. Found the pattern on a site for people using scroll saws. It needed a little more length so I added the bottom part to it

[Cyberthrasher]

Looks great!!

The only thing I would say is that the lacing holes look a little big. But, that's more of a matter of preference. The only thing you may find is that it could possibly allow water into the seat quicker. If you got the good closed cell foam that shouldn't be an issue though.

I did the same thing on my first seat, then had to put a piece of marine vinyl underneath since the stock foam was extremely open cell and would rot in no time if it got water through the holes.

Edited March 27, 2013 by Cyberthrasher

[REDTAILHAWK]

Thanks for the tip Cyberthrasher. It does have closed cell neoprene inside. Going to go with 1/4" lace next time too.