New Life For A Harley Seat

[SmokeyPoint]

I've never posted anything of my own here - but I'll post this...

A friend had an accident with his Harley, so he wanted to refinish the seat. The Vinyl got scuffed and gouged, and... he found out that it was vinyl. He wanted to incorporate Alligator but couldn't flip the cash for the real thing, so I picked up some faux gator from Tandy and he picked up some calfskin he liked. I walked him through the process, step-by-step, showed him how to do things, gave pointers here and there, and pointed out where his plan was going to go awry based on his lack of knowledge of leather. He mounted it on the seat frame himself and it looks like he used force rather than finesse to make it fit, as there are signs of strain at the stitching. Otherwise, it's a great job for a first leather project. I suspect he'll be on here sooner or later, as he was completely enamored with the process.

Edited September 18, 2015 by SmokeyPoint

[jstar61]

Looks great.

[Windrider30]

I like that, how is the leather mounted to the seat frame anyways?

[SmokeyPoint]

It wraps around the underside and is pinned in place by about a hundred little rivets.

[Oldtoolsniper]

He can truly say I did that, most saying that really mean they wrote the check for it.

[SmokeyPoint]

So, this guy works part time at a bike repair shop while he learns the ropes of bike repair/building. Since he's not always engaged in a project, and being a newbie, he sometimes he gets stuck working the desk. Aside from the fact that he now has several people who want to know costs and timelines for custom seat covers, this happened...

"I was working on the stitching while waiting on a customer at my bike shop yesterday and this lady who was picking up her ride told me that seeing a guy who knew how to sew was the hottest thing ever. Aaaaannd, that's how I put a needle through my finger."