Best seat pan construction?

Hey guys,

I am making a seat pan for my bike. If you want to see the bike, here is a link to my thread.

I have modified the frame and I am going to make a seat pan for it and then have it covered. My question is this; what material should I use for the seatpan? Fiberglass? Steel? Aluminum? Cardboard? Old, paper plates? Perhaps a folded up case of beer?

In all seriousness, my point is this, what is the best material for an upholstery shop? Because how do they actually attach the leather? You cant staple steel, or fiberglass. Should I build a lip on it or something? Does this make sense?

Here is a pic of the back of my frame. Also, do you think the back of the frame is too squared off? Should it be one smooth curve from side to side?



Last question is, should I cover it myself? The big thing is, I want the cool ridges sewn into the seat like this. Is that something I can do? Seems like a little out of my league.



Any suggestions are a great help!

they use pop rivets with washers to attach covers to metal pans.

a lip around the edge helps to make a more "finished" edge,and can also help hide the frame rail.

plus it helps to hide the attachment points of the cover.

maybe hit up ramtough he has been doing some upholstery on the side.

do you have more skill with one medium than the others?already got a welder?

you could find a larger seat cover that had the tuck and roll like you like,and rob what you need from it.
but you will still have to create the "border"from scratch..

nothing wrong with the frame as you have it,but having it fully rounded might match the organic shape of the tank better.

hth,
leon

I have a welder. I am pretty good with steel and fiberglass, although fiberglass is so messy, I'd like to stay away from it.

I may look at other covers. There are a ton of CB covers on ebay. If I can get good measurements, maybe I will go with one of those.

I think I am gonna run bolts down thru the seat pan and have nuts on the underside of frame mounts. Also, I think I will have a metal skirt on the sides, perhaps 1 to 1.5 inches tall, that will allow me to hide fuses, voltage reg and stuff like that.

I am still debating changing the back of the frame, we will see. I will hit up ramtough.

THanks!

I have used pop rivets many times and as long as there's a little foam between cover and base on the outside you cannot see the rivets. If you have a sewing machine, it's not hard to make your own cover. I made this, using my mom's ordinary Singer (yeah, I know the colour isn't for everybody )

Wow, nice!! I like it! I actually want to do a tan/brown seat cover on mine. That is pretty sweet man!

Well, I ended up going with metal for the seat pan. Check out my main bike thread (link in first post) if you are interested.

So you went with tan, I see.