Silver Bullet

Past week and a half have been dedicated to my seat shave and the upholstery gods... I wasn't liking the bulkiness of the seat on this bike, wanted to slim everything down, so took the seat off, removed the upholstery and foam, then I did my best to make a symmetrical line around where I wanted to cut the pan.

Its looking good and skinny, so off to home depot, bought some 3 inch foam, and layered it on there with some spray adhesive. Then cut around the edges with a long exacto blade, but a good serrated knife would have been clutch.

Started sketching out the line I want it to follow, once I had that all the way around I cut off more big chunks with the exacto, then moved onto filing and rasping the edges and smoothing it all out.

Looking like a seat, but not quite. Got some marine grade vinyl and tried to stretch it around then was greeted with the reality of compound curves. At that point I was pretty torn between giving up and cutting this down to a solo seat, or going full on and making a pattern to sew. I teach sewing at my student job so I had a feeling I could do it, but that it would be a pain. I started researching how to make patterns for cycle seats and ended up going for it. Covered the whole seat in masking tape, then marked with a sharpie around the top edge. then cut along the mark with a razor blade and removed the masking tape in sections. Laid those out on my vinyl, gave a 5/8 seam allowance and cut out the pattern.

I had a top panel and two sides, if I utilized the material better I would have liked to have one long side piece to eliminate an extra seam. So far, not as complicated as I feared, and a pretty fun way to end finals week. Got to sewing after the pattern was cut, I pinned everything up (right sides together), compound curves and all, Its pretty cool how everything starts to take shape. Then sewed it, this was kind of a pain in some spots and really had to manipulate the fabric to get it to feed through flat. I definitely created some puckers and imperfections in this step as you'll see, but I don't think anything about this build is gonna be perfect.

Its actually fitting okay, so last thing is to actually upholster the seat. Stretched the fabric around and stapled it, simple, just wish I had a better staple gun, don't cheap out on the craft ones if you do this project, get a real industrial one. Its worth it. And not even more expensive, I just bought mine where I got my fabric instead of driving to home depot.

Not perfect by any means, we got some puckers, it looks a little off center, and some ripples here and there too, but I made it myself and it was a cool process.

Here it is on the bike, I like how it sits on the frame now instead of covering the rails. Not very comfy at all lol, but that issue is 100% the foam, not the slimmer profile. If I did this again (which I wont) I would find some way firmer stuff, I'm just sinking straight through this one to the seat pan. So might not have been worth it to go through all this trouble anyway. Lol I do like how it turned out though and was happy I didn't just go to the solo seat. Thats mainly because the next step is a new sissy bar, going to make some cardboard models later and hopefully end up with something that fits the new seat a little tighter, holds a new tail light and license plate, and can handle some luggage. Some motocamping is the goal this summer...

Some small updates, seat is feeling good, liking the direction there, I also put some ls650 shocks on a few weeks ago, which look great. Scraped off the badges on the electronics plate, added some regional pride. Took the mufflers off, left the goat in for now, it has a nice deep idle sound, I didn't much like the sound when I first rode with it, but I rode today with ear protection and it felt perfect. Next things next, got header wrap and mirrors coming in, mine is held on with duct tape right now. Also have the supplies for the sissy bar, just gotta get the fabrication done. The ear shave stuff just got delivered, so I'll do that next time I have the chance, its perfect riding weather now, so might hold off until a rainy day. Coming together one step at a time.

A lot has happened to the bike in a month, but honestly most of it happened yesterday. I earshaved a while ago, uni filters, vacuum plugs and 40/140s, I think I need to change my pilots though, so ordering some 42s shortly. After the earshave I had to replace the battery and solenoid, then onto the fun stuff. Got a mini clamp mirror from tc bros, but if I were to do it again I'd probably find a bicycle mirror for cheaper from a local bike shop.
Yesterday I decided to go to town and figure out a way to realistically mount an old trident sissy bar I got from a moto graveyard, I wanted to have it welded on, but I also wanted it done, so since it fit pretty close, I just drilled some holes in it and bolted it into the fender mounts. Although it slightly pivots forwards, it wont move backwards because of how the frame rails are positioned, so it stays on pretty tight with only one mounting point.

With the sissy bar working, it was time to figure out how to mount my license plate and a round taillight I got from a hardware store (I originally bought a taillight and side mounting plate from tc bros for 100 bucks, I saw a similar light at the store for 8 bucks and immediately returned the overpriced one). The plate was easy enough, two zipties took care of it, the light required a couple more holes in the sissy bar and some rewiring. I ran the ground wire through the bolt on the fender mount. The seat is mounted to the sissy bar with a high tech bandana.


Last things last I grabbed the fender, ran some tape where I wanted the chop, and cut it down, cleaned it up a bit with a dremel, and shot some paint at the exposed edge.
She ain't perfect, and she ain't done, an old school flame paint job is coming later this weekend, I gotta rejet, and might throw some extensions on the exhaust. But I'm digging all the changes and super happy to be pretty much though the checklist I made for this bike.