Making Seat For The First Time Triumph TR5mx

I am making my first ever covered motorcycle seat, it will be for my 1974 Triumph tr5mx vintage mxer. I have looked at threads on this forum and video's on youtube, now I'm combining those and my own ideas to come up with something I hope will be good looking and above all functional. First thing I did was to make a styrofoam pattern of what I wanted the finished piece to look like. Then I made an aluminum seat base (pan) using 0.080" 6061 ally. Then I got one of those kneeling pads for the bulk of the padding which I glued to the base. Then I added a 1/2" layer of neoprene on top of that. I then glued a layer of 1/4" neoprene to the sides which I also wrapped underneath the pan. I am at the point now where I need to go the final shaping which will involve tapering the pad down from the back to be more in line with the tank and also adding a generous radius to the edges of the seating surface.

Does anyone have a source for seat vinyl, the very thin type used on modern mx bike seats?

Try JoAnn's Fabrics. The store usually has several thicknesses in vinyl.

I get that stuff from Sailrite. They have a 4 way stretch vinyl, Morbern Allsport. Another cool fabric is Morbern Shock sport. Sailrite also has some good instructional videos. If you go to the Sailrite site, then search by brand:
https://www.sailrite.com/Fabric-Bra...stery/type/Products?order=custitem_popularity

I really like that Morbern Shock Sport but will probably go with the 4 way stretch Allsport just because I think it will be more forgiving on some of the curves and corners. Thanks.

When you re-curve the corners, finish with a ~3/16" layer of neoprene over it all to give a really smooth appearance after the upholstery.

pidjones said:

When you re-curve the corners, finish with a ~3/16" layer of neoprene over it all to give a really smooth appearance after the upholstery.

Click to expand...

Good call!

Check out "grabber" vinyl its got a tooth to it so you can hold onto the seat with your legs better. The typical route is to have a layer of "sew foam" or cushion batting behind the vinyl which gives you a vintage look and smooths a lot of imperfections in the foam substrate.

Finally got my seat done. It's not perfect but it will be fine for this project. I think I would rather make tanks than seats, it was quite a task.

looks good.