Professional Tips on How to Reupholster a Torn Seat!

00-4.jpg How to

Do you have a motorcycle with a torn seat upholstery due to age or misuse? If you leave it unattended, rainwater will seep into the sponge and make it uncomfortable to sit on. In addition, the glue from the duct tape can stick to your jeans and make them sticky. Before this happens, you should replace the seat yourself.

There are two types of tears in the seat upholstery: natural and man-made.

01-1.jpg The area where the seat upholstery wraps around the bottom is pulled so tightly that it is easy to tear even if you catch a small object on it. If the damage is small, it may be possible to repair it by pushing a synthetic leather edge cloth with the same texture as the surface skin through the tear and stretching it from the back with a flexible adhesive such as Cemedine Super X even after drying.

02.jpg This seat for Yamaha RZ250R has been used for a long time and the surface grain pattern is worn and shiny, but the front side of the seat has a crack. Some types of skin shrink over time, and the front edge of the seat can become shrimpy, leaving a gap between it and the tank. In such a case, the upholstery should be replaced.

Motorcycle seats are exposed to rain, wind, and UV rays, and support the weight of the rider and the load of the luggage strapped to them. Because the seat is such an important point of contact between the rider and the motorcycle, manufacturers focus on developing seats that balance durability, comfort and texture.

Nevertheless, a product that has been manufactured for 10 or 20 years will undergo various changes and deterioration. 20 years seems like a long time ago, but a vehicle manufactured in 2000 will be 20 years old this year, so there are actually many 20-year-olds around.

If you go further back in time and look at out-of-print motorcycles from the 1970s and 1980s, they are probably 40 to 50 years old. Even if you look at the sofas and dining chairs in your living room, there are probably few examples that have been in use for that long. Nevertheless, I feel sorry for motorcycles that people complain and complain when they see that the seat covers of 1980s models have hardened, cracked or cut.

There are two patterns of damage to seat upholstery: accidental and natural, and man-made. The former pattern is degradation caused by UV rays, wind and rain, or a neighbor's bicycle or motorcycle falling and tearing the skin. The latter is typified by mischief while parking.

Naturally occurring damage includes cracks caused by deterioration of the welder pattern, which transfers the pattern to the surface skin while applying heat to it with a high frequency, as well as fraying of the stitching of the surface skin and water seepage. In either case, when the seat sponge absorbs water, it starts seeping every time you sit on the seat, which is very uncomfortable.

A typical example of mischief is a laceration caused by a cutter knife. It is annoying if only the epidermis is cut, but if the sponge is also cut, not only will water seep out as in natural deterioration, but in the case of high-density sponges, the incision will open up from the cutter wound, and the epidermis may be pushed wide open by it.

In some cases, gummed tape or trash bags are used as a temporary solution, but they do not look good and of course, the sheet performance is not good, so it is important to repair them as soon as possible.

POINT
  • Point 1: The durability of motorcycle seat upholstery, which is designed for outdoor use, is outstanding compared to other synthetic leathers.
  • Point 2: It is difficult to dry when the sponge absorbs water, so if the seat surface skin is torn, it is necessary to repair it as soon as possible.

Tuckers are required to reupholster the surface.

03.jpg 1) Carefully pull out the staples driven into the sheet bottom one by one with a flathead screwdriver, nippers or radio pliers.
2) The surface may be fixed not only with staples but also with glue. Remove the remaining adhesive from the bottom side. Pull out the staples that remain on the bottom side.
3) The sponge in the cropped area is slightly missing, but the overall condition is appropriate for its age. If the surface skin is cut by mischief and the sponge is also cut, the cut part should be laminated. If you do not do this, you may feel uncomfortable.
4) Newer models of the year that use high density urethane sponge do not show much difference, but when a single sponge of an out-of-print motorcycle is dried and dried, it can be noticeably lighter than before drying.

When reupholstering a motorcycle seat, there are three options: ask a professional shop to do it, put up a ready-made upholstery cut according to the type of motorcycle by yourself, or put up a single piece of upholstery by yourself. The most reliable and complete way is to leave it to professionals. If you search on the Internet, you will find information on a number of reupholstery companies.

It is quite difficult to stretch a single piece of synthetic leather, especially for a relatively flat seat like a dining chair, but it is quite difficult to stretch a three-dimensional seat for a motorcycle. On the other hand, if the seat is not upholstered tightly enough, it will look miserable with wrinkles and bends.

In the pattern of stretching upholstery designed exclusively for each model by yourself, the quality and satisfaction of the finished product will vary greatly depending on what kind of upholstery is used. If your purpose is customization, you can choose the upholstery with your favorite design such as tuck roll or cut back.

However, if the base motorcycle is an out-of-print model and you want to stick to the genuine design of the past, it becomes difficult to choose the surface skin.

Even if you have a seat specialty store that can make any design of upholstery by sewing, they may not be able to make a welder pattern like the one on the Kawasaki Z2 or Honda CB750 Four. In order to make a welder pattern, you need a high-frequency welding machine and also a special press mold for the genuine design. Even if the same design can be made by sewing, there are still riders who need to be welded.

For such owners, I recommend repro-surface made by stores specializing in out-of-print motorcycles that look just like genuine ones. Several stores and manufacturers sell their products, but you can see the level of attention to detail and reproduction that only a store specializing in a particular model can provide.

Not only for out-of-print vehicles, but most of the seat covers that are claimed to be designed for specific models are also 3D cut to match the shape of the genuine seat sponge, which provides a good fit. However, it is important to note that if you try to remove or increase the unevenness of the sponge, the surface skin may be too much or not enough. To address these issues, Doremi Collection, a company that develops and sells reproduction parts for the Kawasaki Z series, also sells seat leathers for the Z1 and Z2 that are compatible with lowered seats.

Now, if you want to reupholster the seat upholstery by yourself, you will need some tools. In the days when seat bottoms were made of steel plate, such as the Kawasaki Z1/Z2 and Honda CB750 Fore, the upholstery was held in place by steel nails, but the plastic bottoms of current motorcycles are held in place by a U-shaped metal needle called a staple, which is driven in with a machine called a tucker. Simply put, it is like a big stapler (this is the name of a specific product).

There are three types of tuckers: hand, air, and some electric. Hand tuckers are inexpensive, but they are designed to be used on plywood, and you will likely have a hard time getting them into hard seat bottoms. The air tucker is very powerful and can drive the needle into the seat bottom with ease, but the price of the machine is expensive and you need an air compressor.

The cost of reupholstering a seat at a professional shop varies, but if you have to buy a tucker and compressor from scratch, I think it will be more reasonable to order from a professional. If you already own a compressor and only need to buy a tucker, it is a good idea to try it.

04.jpg

This is a set of high-density super urethane and upholstery of the same shape as the genuine RZ250R, which was previously sold by Daytona. Although the surface is no longer sold, the seat urethane itself is still available. It is recommended to simply replace the worn out stock sponge to improve the hold.
 

POINT
  • Point 1: If you are reupholstering a seat upholstery for the first time, it is easy to reupholster the seat upholstery if you select an upholstery designed specifically for your model.
  • Point 2: If the material of the seat bottom is resin, a tucker is a must for fixing the surface skin.

Fixing the seat base and sponge makes it more rigid.

05.jpg 1) When restoring a well dried seat sponge, apply adhesive to the same position as the stock sponge. The more adhesive area, the more rigid the seat will feel, but without some freedom, the ride will be harder.
2) Apply adhesive to both sponge and sheet bottom and stick them together. The trick with rubber-based adhesives, such as Bond G17, is to wait until the applied surface is somewhat dry before pressing them together.
3) There is a triangular notch on the front and rear of the seat skin, align this mark with the center of the seat bottom.
4) Fasten the seat upholstery with a tucker that uses the pressure of the air compressor to push out the staples. If the repro surface skin is equivalent to the genuine one, you can fix it referring to the place where the genuine staple was driven in.

Here we will reupholster the seat of Yamaha RZ250 which is torn at the tip of the seat. 35 years old and out of print, but the seat base is made of resin because it is 1980's model.

When removing the old seat upholstery, it is important to carefully pull out the staples on the seat bottom. If you leave the staples in a half-broken state because you will be driving in new ones anyway, the new seat upholstery will get caught and cause holes or tears. Also, if there are burrs in the hole where the staple was driven in, use a cutter knife or scraper to scrape them off so that they will not get caught when you put up the upholstery.

If the sponge can be easily peeled off from the seat bottom, be sure to dry the sponge in the sun to remove any water that has seeped in. This is essential if the surface skin has been cut and is absorbing water. However, if the sponge and the bottom of the sheet are tightly adhered to each other, it is best not to try to remove the sponge too hard, as you may risk tearing the sponge. Nevertheless, be sure to dry it in the sun.

If the seat has a sponge that can be peeled off, be sure to apply adhesive to the joining surface with the seat bottom before assembling. The bonding point should be the same area as the stock seat. If you put the sponge on the seat without applying the adhesive, the seat will not be stable when you staple the seat with tucker, and the seat will be uncomfortable while riding.

The adhesive to be applied is generally a rubber-based solvent type adhesive. Some sheet shops apply the canned type with brushes or spray guns, but the commercially available tube type is effective enough.

After the glue dries and the sponge and the seat bottom are integrated, you can put the surface skin. If the surface is cut specifically for your model, the front and rear surface will roughly follow the design of the sponge, but first, temporarily fix the front and rear surface.

The surface skin used here has a center mark to align the center, so align this with the center line of the seat bottom and temporarily fix with a tucker. Also, it is sewn at the seat surface and the part that goes around the back side. By aligning this seam with the edge of the sponge, you can prevent it from being pulled too much or too loose in the front and rear direction.

Some old motorcycles and out-of-print motorcycles have vinyl between the seat surface and sponge. This is a countermeasure for the time when the genuine seat covers were sewn and the waterproofing of the seams was not perfect, and it is not seen in the current production motorcycles where most of them use the welding method. However, there is an example that some seat specialty shops put vinyl in between the sponge to prevent it from absorbing water.

When temporarily fastening the front and back and pressing the left and right sides, be sure to staple the same position on both sides of the seat bottom while pulling evenly and alternately. At the beginning of the stapling process, the gap between the staples should be large and wide, and then, while checking the balance between the left and right sides, the staples should be inserted at narrower intervals to remove wrinkles and sagging. If you can't get rid of wrinkles by any means, you can soften the surface skin by heating it lightly with a hair dryer to make it easier to staple.

06.jpg However, it is impossible to demand mass-production level quality from the start, so the first temporary fix is to staple in a position where there is room while looking at the balance between front and back and left and right. After that, the number of staples is gradually increased to make it tight.

07.jpg The cutting of the surface skin depends on the design of the manufacturer of the surface skin, and in the case of this surface skin, there is room in the front side, but the back side is very close. In this case, the front side has enough room, but the back side is very close to the edge. To prevent wrinkles on the surface side, pull it tightly and staple it in the center.
 

POINT
  • Point 1: If the sponge peels off from the sheet bottom, make sure to dry the sponge itself in the sun.
  • Point 2: The seat upholstery is first positioned front to back, and then staples are placed with a tucker along the seat bottom left and right.

See Accessories of DAYTONA
See Accessories of DOREMI COLLECTION

タイトルとURLをコピーしました