Veg tan saddle make over

[the tinker]

Tinker, I have enjoyed your progress. I have never recovered a bicycle seat, only seats on cars and trucks. I run into some of the same issues your dealing with in bending 3mm Birch Plywood paneling around 4" corner radius corners on vintage cabinets. Here's some observations from another viewpoint.

I would not use any steel, or aluminum rod around the leather, as it will leave marks on the wet leather. The steel will rust, and the aluminum will also leave dark marks. You could use a 3/4" thick piece of plywood and cut out a hole in the plywood of the exact shape of the seat pan, allowing for the thickness of the material you are using. I think you will find the old seat pans are not perfectly symmetrical due to production tolerances and years of abuse. How about establishing a center line on the pan and cut a cardboard pattern for one half of the seat pan to the center line. This pattern can be transferred to the plywood, then flipped over to make a perfectly symmetrical seat pan shape on the wood. Cutout the seat shape using a router for a nice edge. Finish up the plywood edge using a 3/8" to 1/2" radius bit. Having a perfect pattern would help you do some hammer and dolly work on the pan to true it up before you move into the "trimming steps".

With the wooden seat pattern, and a slightly larger base plywood board you could clamp the seat pan, the leather, using Irwin Bar Clamps. They are strong and offer your "micro adjustments". It's easier to use a little pressure with a large clamp, than to try to "over work" a small clamp. I would use about six of their 30" clamps for even "controllable" pressure around the edge.

If you're searching for information on projects like this, use the search word TRIMMER, of TRIMMING. Guys that do auto convertible tops, motorcycle seats, Airplane interiors, etc. call themselves TRIMMER's. Knowing this, it might help your search for ideas on how to do your projects.

Good Work,
John

Thank you, John. I think your way is how these old saddles were originally production made. Maybe the early ones were built up by hand, but by the 20's the leather was stamped out of the hide to the rough shape in a clicker press, submerged in water and placed into a die press that stamped the top leather into shape. These would be placed over the padded saddle pans, stitched by machine and machine trimmed. A coat of dye and then done. There's no way, someone in a factory wasted all day making the saddle on my 36 Ranger. They had precise pattens to knock these saddles out on a production line. Your point about the metal leaving rust stains in the wet leather is an important one. I have used pre-shaped wood blocks as patterns to make small leather pouches and I've noticed, even the wood if left to set overnight, whatever resin that's in the wood will leach out and leave a permanent black mark in the leather. No problem, because it's on the back side of the finished leather piece. The problem is the clamps. The clamps I used are what I have at hand. Harbor freight sells some very cheap and I'm thinking of a way of modifying the ends on some of them to accommodate saddle work. Metal clamps leave permanent rust marks if left on any length of time, not to mention deep marks in the leather. That's how I came up with the wire idea. The wire is placed in the stitch line. It leaves an indent too, but it's covered by the stitching. Any clamp marks are in left on the wire and not on the leather. Since it's high quality wire, it leaves no black marks or stains. Another good point you mentioned was the pan. The pan on this red saddle was badly bent and rusted. I think that may have been the start of the problem I had with the nose of this saddle being off. Also, I was way off on the back radius of black saddle shown below.

Kills me to tear off the leather to make it right. Obviously, my lack of attention to the old saddle pan screwed me in the finished product.....another mistake I will not repeat. From an old Weaver Leather video by Chuck Dorsitt, he uses his knuckles , not his thumbs to push the leather and smooth the inner corners into shape. This eliminates fingertip and permanent fingernail marks in the leather. I tried this method on the red saddle and it worked great, but my knuckles really hurt the next morning. As always, have fun!

 

[WetDogGraphix]

Buickmike. Yes, we struggle along... That little wire jig was my idea, so I could keep the wet leather tight to the saddle and be able to set the clamps on the wire, thus not damaging the leather with clamp marks. I don't have clue how the "experts" do these saddles. Probably got special clamps. The premium solder I happened to have on hand. It worked great, as it was solid core; nice and stiff and would not leave any metal stains on the wet leather. On the first two saddles I covered, I left the wire jig on overnight. The saddles dried and were nicely formed, but this caused problems too. It was very hard to work out any bad spots. On this red saddle, I left the wire on only about an hour or so, with a little heater blowing on it. The leather set up enough that I could remove the wire. It worked great, holding everything tight, plus the leather was still plastic enough to mold , make corrections and remove any marks. I will never let the top leather dry out overnight again. I'll let it set up a bit, remove all the clamps. Then continue to pull and shape the leather tight. I actually used a round electrical extension cord, wrapped around the perimeter of the saddle to make the outside margin . LOL. Tried to use dividers, but the sharp point left a scratch on the soft leather. We're pretty much on our own here. Detailed information from the pros on how to properly do these right has been so far.... nil. There are no vids on these old veg tan saddles that I can find. As far as adhesive, right now I'm leaning towards spraying some only to the center of the saddle and up the tongue. Staying away from the lower sides. I use contact cement on the outer stitched edges. Back when I did the "Cheap and Quick" thread in the Restoration Tips , that was on saddles like yours. They weren't stitched. I sprayed everything. Those were also chrome-tan leather. Whole new ballgame. I had very good luck doing those. As far as these old "long spring"veg tan saddles, I may be wrong, but I don't think they had any type of glue or adhesive used on them, other than around the stitched edges. Below is the "red" saddle before recovering:

View attachment 2131876 Same saddle with fresh leather on it. The wire and clamps holding the wet leather tight.

View attachment 2131875

 

[buickmike]

I'm at the store as we speak. But it's a mess . The customers ( women mainly) can be vicious. I try to get in and out quickly before all hell breaks loose round noon. Last week at same time ole girl blocked the aisle with cart, forcing me into nearby wire display hooks. Im looking for answers But if I can't see those clips I gotta make a break for it. My leftover fabric only was good for one pattern, so here I go....

 

[Schwinn Sales West]

I have a Harbor Freight less than a mile from my house, they have improved their quality offerings.

Any fabricator will confirm, you can never have enough clamps. BUT the Irwin Bar Clamps that HF copied are not the same. 99% of my clamp collection came from years of searching Yard Sales, the older the clamp, the better the clamp.

John

 

[WetDogGraphix]

What I'm inferring here is that you can use these clips with leather inserted, or you can use scrap leather with the clamps you have to keep from marring the finished piece.
Just a little tip..................

 

[buickmike]

Definitely could use more clips,thanks

 

[ridingtoy]

I'm keeping a watch on this thread. A lot of good tips on working with saddle leather. If my efforts turn out anywhere near as good as yours on the red saddle, I'll be very pleased.

Dave

 

[the tinker]

So....the wife saw the red saddle. This is the exact discussion that followed: Her, "Oh...that's so cute. Can you make me one like that, only a little smaller......Maybe in baby blue.....and with an Indian princess on it????? Me, " Whattta ya mean, cute? Yeah I can make one, but no princess, just a chief. No blue either. You get black, red or brown. " Her, "But I'd really like blue....." Me, "NO BLUE, YA GOT IT? NO STINKEN BLUE!!!" So... I only have two crummy old saddles to choose from. Off these two tired Colsons.

This one was the smallest of the two.

Her, "Oh......it's awfully big....and it's so dirty......" Me, "IT"S ALL I GOT. OKKKKKK???? IT"S THE ONLY ONE I GOT! I"LL DYE IT RED!!!! RED! OK?........ I"LL MAKE IT CUTE,OK???? REAL CUTE, OK????.... BUT NO STINKEN PRINCESS!"
There we have it. This weeks project. Keep her happy, but no blue. She wants red. Couldn't take black or maybe a soft brown. No. Gotta be red..... fancy. She said she'd make me some pancakes and extra crisp bacon.....like she figures that's payment for her new saddle. We'll see.



All right. It's now late afternoon. Here's the progress report: Found some leather. I only have two pieces of leather. A heavy 9oz. piece for the underside lip and a 5oz. for the top. It's all I have left, so it has to work.

This old saddle top is in great shape. I recovered it about ten years ago. I'll leave it on and go right over it with the new leather.

Above: I layout the pattern for the underside leather. This wastes a lot of leather, any other way would have two splices. This way it's one continuous border along the pan edge.

I'll trim off the excess top covering that folded under the pan. Then attach the wood strips over the protruding pan bolts, so it can be securely clamped in the bench vise.

Above: With the rough lines of the bottom leather layed out, it's ready to cut, soak in warm water about 5 minutes and install. The bottom pan, after being tightly bolted on, forms the wet 9oz. leather to shape.

I used the orange extension cord to scribe the edge.

Roughed up the old covering for the adhesive.

Formed the wet 5oz. over the old saddle, this time using the electrical cord as a jig. We'll see.......

 

[buickmike]

This was the last straw for my seat guy. Gave him bulk material, new cushion, and old p stained original cover. 4 months later and a couple hundred, he won't have anything to do with me. But I do have enough material left for a couple,least one seat . This guy is an artist

 

[the tinker]

This concludes this thread. I'll show pictures of stitching and the finished saddle in the Restoration Tips, after I'm done. The saddle below is the "before " photo, the next photo the "after."

The top leather I used on the red saddle had a nasty flaw . The initials F B were stamped in tiny pin pricks deep into the leather. Soon as I wet the leather to form it, the large initials "F B " jumped out at me. It was my last hunk of leather, so I went with it. Didn't intend to stamp the horse image into the saddle, but it covered the large F B nicely.

The saddle I used was a post war seat. I'd say, maybe late 40's. I used it for practice doing stitching and forming. Never had leather on it. It was originally covered with one the early vinyl impregnated cloths . I had previously recovered it years back in the brown vinyl shown in the photo below, in the " Recovering Saddles Cheap and Quick thread, in Restoration Tips. Turned out nice. Absolutely nothing wrong with covering these post war seats with modern materials, because after the war, few post war bike companies were still using leather on their seats. The Schwinn Phantoms seemed to be the last major run of bikes sporting quality leather saddles. Also, lots of pre war bikes used oil cloth and another leather look alike cloth backed material I've seen. I've carefully looked at some of my original leather saddles from the late 30's. Some of the long-spring leather ones were not made from veg tan. I did not get into leather working until covid hit, but from 1966 until 1968 I worked in a small factory as a "cutter." It was a high school job in a small shop that produced leather products. I hand cut, with a die, the mountains of hides into various shapes and none of it was veg tan leather. The leather I cut was not light weight furniture grade. It was a pretty heavy weight chrome-tan leather. The only time I wasn't cutting leather was when I was on one of the ancient cast iron machines, installing eyelets, snaps, post and caps. I mention this because I get the drift that veg tan is the "only" way to go when considering covering a saddle. I'll agree, it's the easiest, as far as shaping and forming, for a flawless easy fit. And, for the pre war long spring saddles, it's the way to go. I just want to point out that there are other alternatives, but all of them take lots of practice. Wet veg tan is much, much easier to work with, than struggling trying to get the wrinkles out of fabric or vinyl. But, with the man-made material, you cover it and you're done. No staining and praying it comes out nice. And, unlike leather, it's cheap. You screw up, you rip it off. Start over. I struggled with this red stain. I wanted a consistent stain cover, but there's dark and lighter spots. I think it's the leather. In some areas the surface, being natural absorbs more of the stain. It's light around the Indian. I was very nervous holding my tiny brush while doing it. One mistake with my nervous hands and the dark red stain bleeding into the Indian, would have permanently ruined the Indian head. I used 4 heavy coats of Fiebing's Pro-Dye red stain, and a final coat of Fiebings Vintage Gel tan bronzer. The black on the horse was applied first. That was Fiebing's Black Pro-Dye. All that's left is to stitch it it up. No big mistakes on this saddle. The outside border around the stitching could be better. It's wider in spots. And the stain job, it is what it is. So....if you're thinking of re-covering your 1935-65 bike saddle, no matter what material you choose, get ready to practice, practice, practice, but keep having fun!