my cafe seat: leather, vinyl? coloured? where can find em?

[kzromey]

Hey guys, so i think i'm gonna try my hand at makin my own seat. i have a bare seat pan to start with. i'm either gonna find an old seat and salvage the foam and mould/build up a hump for it then i'm gonna TRY stitchin the upholstery up myself. i already have a kewl pattern in mind.

so i know stock seats are made of vinyl, is leather necessarily better? does one last/weather longer than the other? does the colour of the leather run if wet? and where can i buy sheets of the stuff? i don't need much, just gotta pattern the cuts.

opinions, should i use coloured (say red) upholstery, well part of the sides and the hump, seat part will stay black. or should i just use black througout?

thanks for any tips/feedback.

by the way, this section is great! got all my ideas from here and members offcourse!

 

[Cafe_to_go]

Depending where you are located, you can find material at any fabric store. I bought some two weeks ago at Hancock Fabrics:

http://www.hancockfabrics.com/

I bought a yard of black vinyl for $15 a foam pad for $7. I got a quote over the phone for a solo seat for my bike of $80-120 from a local upholstery shop. So I decided to buy the material myself. They carry many different colors and patterns, I don't know if they carry any leather, I wasn't looking for leather so I didn't check. I might be going back to buy a different color and maybe buy look a like ostrich skin in a tan color.

 

[kzromey]

thanks for that cafe to go. i may have to do the cheaper vinyl option, if it'll get the job done. but i found this place with everything you need to know and have for ANY leather project.

http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/

. . . but the sheets are pricey and the minimum sheet to order is way more than what i need, for around $100 CAN. bout 4-5$/sq.foot. but they do have a natural looking vegetable tanned leather in smaller sheets 1' x 4-5 ' (that can be dyed or whatever), i'll have to get the foam done first so i can do up a pattern to have an idea for how much material. the natural leather look might look neat, although (not that it matters) did the cafe guys back then ever use tan coloured seats? or have they historically always been black?

they also suggested i use wax thread and they agreed i should hand stitch it with a heavy duty needle. lookin forward to it! guess the next tricky part is approximating how much material to use while keeping in mind that it will stretch after a while (so i wont have wrinkles...)

 

[chrisf]

Look on eBay too. I bought a very nice piece of leather for $17 delivered. It was JUST enough for the seat.

--Chris

 

[timber]

care of what kind of seat foam you use. i found the foam that pool floats are made of works better than anything you can buy in the fabric store.

 

[locOleoN]

Hey guys, so i think i'm gonna try my hand at makin my own seat. i have a bare seat pan to start with. i'm either gonna find an old seat and salvage the foam and mould/build up a hump for it then i'm gonna TRY stitchin the upholstery up myself. i already have a kewl pattern in mind.

so i know stock seats are made of vinyl, is leather necessarily better? does one last/weather longer than the other? does the colour of the leather run if wet? and where can i buy sheets of the stuff? i don't need much, just gotta pattern the cuts.

opinions, should i use coloured (say red) upholstery, well part of the sides and the hump, seat part will stay black. or should i just use black througout?

thanks for any tips/feedback.

by the way, this section is great! got all my ideas from here and members offcourse!

Hey Jerome,

Let me know how much black vinyl you need. I might have some extra laying around that you can have.
Also, you now that you could mount that fiberglass seat onto the stock seat pan, (some mods/cuts might be needed on the seat pan)
Ive done it on my cb350. I cut and trimmed the stock seat pan then bolted it underneath the fiberglass seat:

THis is a fiberglass seat bolted on to a trimmed stock seat pan.

 

[kzromey]

hey yah, i was thinkin of that too, but i think it's gonna look to thick, no?

well i found sheets of foam at wallmart, same company that does the floating noodles, it's new, bout 1" thick in maybe 7" by 4 feet sheets so i can use that as a base then stick a bunch together in the back and shave out a hump. i still would really like the proper seat/gelfoam for my arse as i get low back pain and can't go with just any cheapo foam.

here's a thought, i noticed that there are 2 main forms of that cafe bump, the round half bubble and the square kind. i was thinking of matching that shape with the shape of my tank (back part to sorta match the curves), not quite bubble (cuz it's the coffin style tank) but not quite square, in between. we'll see how it goes....

i love these seats!