the tinker
Cruisin' on my Bluebird
Here's the problem: "Cheap and Quick " is not acceptable to some members of the CABE. To them everything has to be perfect. Nothing wrong with that, but I think they have missed the entire purpose of this thread. Not everyone has a load of leather working experience to turn out a perfect saddle on possibly their first and only saddle they'll ever recover. Without an expert guiding their way and showing how to use the expensive tools that may only be used once, it's frustrating. Not many of us can afford the dollars to pay someone to professionally recover their 15 dollar saddle. We have folks on the CABE that regularly recover these old saddles. They do a perfect Job.....and charge big bucks to do it. It's not exactly easy doing a saddle and takes time and skill. They rightfully earn it. I understand that. Sometimes they will comment positively, and throw out a "tiny" tidbit of information on how they do things, but as we struggle, that's as far as they go. S u r e would be nice for the "experts" here, to post a step by step tutorial on their next saddle recover job. Some of us would like to recover their old saddle and do a nice job. I'm one of them. That said.....old tinker struggles along. Here's my current project: I bought this single pan saddle at the Biketoberfest in Illinios earlier this month. I think it's teens or early 20's and off a Iver Johnson. Previous owner intended to recover. He applied foam padding, but that's as far as he got. It was the only old long spring saddle at the swap. I thought the price of 70 bucks was kinda steep, as I remember the days of these rusty bottom brackets being like 5-10 bucks. Being this saddle is a single pan type, it's hard to recover, as it has to be stitched on by hand. For better or worse, I'll keep updating with my progress, or "lack of." This is going to be a "learning" experience. I'm using veg-tan 5 oz. leather for the covering. 8-9 oz for the band riveted to the underside of the pan. The top leather was soaked for five minutes in warm water before use. This makes it easy to stretch over the pan. Previous saddles done in this thread have used "Chrome -tan" leather. Soaking it will ruin the finish on it and sometimes cause it to tear. Warming it up makes it easier to work with, but it won't stretch like veg-tan. So....here goes. Shown is underside of the pan. Foam padding was already glued to the pan and had to be removed and trimmed to fit better.
A strip of 9oz. leather was riveted to the underside of the pan with standard cap rivets. No special tool to apply, only a hammer. No glue. The top leather will be sewn to it.
Using the steel pan as a guide, I trimmed the excess leather from the edges, hopefully leaving enough leather to sew too. [ I'm a tad concerned about that]
Next, I cut the top leather covering from the hide, making it about an inch bigger than the pan, all the way around.
After soaking the cut-out in warm water for about five minutes, I applied it over the pan, starting in it back and working to the front. Clamping it as I go.
The silver wire around the perimeter is solid core silver solder, keeping the leather tight to the edges. I'll let this dry a couple days. When dry, the leather will be permanently formed to the saddle. I will apply some 3m spray adhesive to the underside of the leather and top of padding. the edges will be held together with contact cement and trimmed. Lastly, I will dye the leather Black and stitch. I will keep everyone update with photos. Now, If there are any of our"experts" looking at this, please correct my crude methods and show some photos of how you do it right. Lastly, here's a photo of the bike this old saddle will be on, when done. It's a 1946 Ranger. I've already painted it. Old tinker is happy......for now.......
