Making a Seat - Plaid of Course!

Long story short, I made a seat for Ratty. It started with a grand scheme to incorporate some plaid into the bike, since Canadians love plaid. You'll notice an odd location for the seat, in the final pics. I've decided to locate the seat on what would be the luggage rack, located just behind the typical stock seat location. This should work well with the foot pegs located a few inches aft of the normal location, and some custom bars.

Step 1 happened this morning, we went to Joannes fabric where I scoured the aisles for plaid. Found me a yard of red plaid that was just right. Then I got to fabricating.

Cutting out a seat bottom out of some old 1/4" thick press board. Using a metal cutting wheel on my trusty angle grinder meant a nice smoke show for the neighbors.


With the seat base cutout, I made a pattern and cutout two pieces of 1/2" foam and bonded everything together with some Super 77.


And then the topper, a piece of AdvanTex textile sheet leftover from a shipping box at work. This is the 1/2" felt material that typically treats p00p.


Upholstering the seat, using plenty of Super 77 and a staple gun


Final product:


Seat sitting on the unfinished luggage rack:


Tomorrow, I make an aluminum rack that mounts on the top of the gas tank. I'm going to fashion some sort of carrying device. Maybe leather, maybe a wooden box. I'm not really sure.

C'