DIY - Custom Saddle

[jamesfz6]

Looks like you put a lot of thought into this one, great write-up and cant wait to see how it is on a long ride. Keep us posted.

 

[shaggystyle]

I got the rebond and neoprene from the site listed at the top of the post, but it looks like that guy doesn't sell it anymore. I also bought some foam from a local upholstry store, they had lots of different types and you should be able to find a similar store near you. Good luck.


As an update, I finally got to take it for a long ride last weekend. I used a lot of soft foam on the top layer, which is great for short term comfort, but it compresses away to nothing after about an hour. So I'm going to upgrade the from low density foam (1.5 lbs/ft^3) to a little bit firmer material (2.5 lbs/ft^3). That'll be my project for next weekend. I'll post an update when I get it done.

 

[Nelly]

Step 6) Next I added a nose by taking a few piecse of the soft poly foam and gluing them together into a pyramid. I attached this to the front of the saddle on top of the new rebond and then smoothed it all out with the grinder.

At this point I decided I wanted a little bit more support around the edjges so I cut some 1x1x8 inch pieces of rebond and glued them around the outline of the seat. With this done I roughly cut a piece of the soft poly foam and place it on top of the seat. This was more of an afterthought, the more soft foam, the more comfortable it's goign to be.....right?

The last piece of foam was a shet of neoprene roughly cut and shaped to cover the entire drivers seat. This was mainly to hold everything in place and smooth out the imperfections.

Step 7) As I mentioned earlier, I had initially planned to reuse the original seat cover. But it's pretty obvious that I added WAY too much foam for that to be an option. I puchased a yard and a half of boat seat material from a local upholstry store and recovered the seat with it. I didn't take any pictures of this step (sorry), it's basically just stretch the material and staple it in place. I would recomend starting at the back and moving forward in a zig-zag fashion. Saving the front (where it contacts the tank) for last. Once everything was secured I cut off the excess and tightened up a few places.

Here it is mounted. It's not pretty but it's damn comfortable. I'll probably end up making some adjustments to it over the next few seasons. Maybe build up the front a bit more, try and take down the back a bit....not really sure, I'm just going to have to ride it for a while and figure out what I do and don't like.

Before:

After:

All in all, I put about $115 into materials and I bought way too much. I have enough left over to do at least 2 more seats, maybe 3 if I can reuse the cover on one. Point being, if you are a little more realistic in how much foam you buy, this is completely doable for ~$50.

Comfort rating: 1 hojillion points
Style rating: -12

Nice one shaggy,
I don't think that it looks bad for a first upholstery attempt. Upholstery is an art in its self.

Nelly

 

[shaggystyle]

yeah, i've tightened up the vinyl a couple times now and that really helps the look. It smoothes out the shape a bunch, only thing is, since the material is new it keeps stretching everytime I go for a long ride. It gets less everytime, so hopefully it's close to settling in. It's still a work in progress, but so far it's going well. I've got parts on order for my next overly ambitious DIY project (it's gonna be a good one), which may distract me from doing much more work on this one for a little while. I'll keep updating as I get time to work on it.

 

[HavBlue]

So how do you like it on the long haul?

 

[shaggystyle]

it's better than the stock but not as good as it could be. The soft top layer compresses too much and after about an hour it becomes pretty much useless. I'm going to replace the top with something a bit denser and see if that improves it.