Seat Pans...not A Bobber

[mendedbowl]

Biltwell offers several different styles of seat pans with foam. They have cafe, challenger, thin line solo, banana, etc. Their prices seem a little high to me, but the foam is already attached and shaped.

[ikewineb]

Kydex would not be nearly strong enough and becomes pliable when hot. Air cooled engine sitting under it on a 100 degree day...oh, it woudn't be good.

Good Call on biltwell. I'm going to email them and see if they have anything two up or offer a pillion to match one of the solos. You are right, that is a bit pricy, but it would take a lot of the work out of it. I'm not really interested in shaping foam and the like. I just want to do the leatherwork.

[ikewineb]

So, I've talked to Saddleman (still waiting on a final word there), corbin, drag specialties, biltwell, and a few others that never responded. It looks like to get anything close to what I want, I either have to find a stock seat or make my own pan. My concern with making a pan is laying the fiberglass on my bike, especially if I decide to make more than one.

Uncle Fester's comment got me to thinking. I don't know if this would work, but...What if I made a mold on the bottom of my factory seat with kydex. basically, just lay Kydex in it and heat it until it conforms to the bottom of the factory pan. Then I could tape it up and lay the fiberglass ontop of the mold. Would that work? There has to be a problem with it, or smarter guys than me would of thought of it already. For that matter, you could about cast it in plaster. In my head, it would give you a workable mold to make multiple pans on. The biggest benefit is I could make them on my bench and not on my bike.

[paprhangr]

here is something interesting that I stumbled upon a while back,

http://midnightcustoms.blogspot.com/2011/11/part-16-seat-pan.html

[Uncle Fester]

I've been riding, and working in bike shops my whole life, and I've never seen the seat of a cruiser get as hot as your suggesting. Some sport bikes that run the exhaust under the seat are the only excepion that i can think of.

That beeing said, I have a hand made solo seat that was given me by a friend that has Kidex as a seat pan.

Not trying to be argumetative, just stating what i know from experiance.

[ikewineb]

Not argumentative at all. If I'm worng about something, I appreciate someone pointing it out. I've made kydex holsters before, and from my experience, they can get soft at surprisingly low temps. Not like the weapons going to fall out soft, but loose some detail in the forming.

I've been doing some reading since your post and there appears to be grades of kydex. The thickeness of the kydex could be a factor too. Holster's typically use pretty thin stuff. Any idea how thick the kydex on your seat is? Could you lay fiberglass ontop of it to add strength? I mean, I know you can, but would it bond. Any info or ideas there would be helpful.

[Uncle Fester]

I'll get a look, and maybe some pics, tomorrow before I head out to work.

[Uncle Fester]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I didn't get any pics, but the pan is 1/8" thermoplastic of some sort.

[ikewineb]

So, I've been doing quite a bit of research on this. There are some pans made from kydex, but not many at all. Most Thermoplastic pans are made from a laminated ABS. This is the same stuff that a factory pan is made from. I've decided I'm going to try to just make a mold with Kydex and then build a fiberglass pan on top of that. There are two big benfits I see. First, I could use it mutile times to build more than just one pan. I could even borrow a few friends bikes for a few hours to make the same molds for. Second, I wouldn't have to risk getting resin on my bike. The last thing I want is to make her mad at me. It will be a while before I can get to it, but I'll let everyone know how it turns out.

[scottk1967]

This has been interesting. I've gone through a lot of seats and have a couple I bought at swap meets sitting around waiting for me to get motivated. My dads done upholstery work for many decades and has done many do overs on my existing pan either Hd or aftermarket. We prefer metal pans by leaps and bounds. HD factory pans are a dissapointmet. My dads gotten older and it's my turn to start doing sets for myself and there's a lot to learn. My thought is if you use some sort of Kydex or plastic you got nothing to loose if you build it yourself every time you do a seat you'll learn something and get better just like my dad did and I hope to. I'd put some sort of soft fabric or some thing under your pan to keep your paint nice where it rubs. GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN DOING IT!