Quote:
Originally Posted by Doomy
How hard would it be to create your own bike seat?
I could see.. getting a properly sized pole from the hardware store with a square bracket at the top to bolt to the material your sitting on and then getting the material to hold the padding in place by stapling around the edges underneath...
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Not hard at all. I use a seat of my own making. I also use a head foil of my own design and manufacture.
For a seat, carve from soft basswood or balsa or hard foam a shape that appeals to you. Take a good look at what is out there in the way of design. Try to figure what you want by eye if not by experience.
Smooth this newly carved seat and coat with a single layer of epoxy resin. Let harden and then sand to a fair finish. Coat this new surface with auto wax or any commercial mold release. Use this "seat" as a positive mold to cast the finished product by layering up a menu of materials on it. You can use fibreglass, carbon fibre or any number of modern fabrics like Kevlar or Spectra Fibre.
Let the whole thing set up and then pop it loose from your original carving. You now have a shell of the seat you first created. It is recommended you carve the original seat a tad undersize as the finished shell will grow in size from the layer build up. This is all done by eye and experience is helpful. (I did it badly the first time - too big)
This shell can be made to accept the hardware off an existing saddle. I did not make my own rails but took them from an old Brooks saddle.
Your outer shell can now be covering in any type of material you can glue to it. Or you can ride it smooth and bare. That is what I did after epoxy painting it forest green to match my frame.
There are many good books to be had on the working of composite materials. It's dirty work but easier to do than you might think. It does help to have some sense of art or shape and form. Tool use too.
Ian
Linear Mode
