Ok, finally got the first seat in!
There's good news and bad news. The good news is that it came out exceptionally well and is incredibly well made (one of the reasons I sent the work to the guy that did it to begin with).
The bad news, the glasser completely misinterpreted which side was the show side, so the underside of the seat pan is rough fiberglass and the top (which is getting covered in upholstery) is nice and smooth. I don't know if this is something that's easily addressed but I'm guessing it's not. I'll have a talk with him tomorrow about it regardless. I want to fit the seat on my bike tonight to see if there are any dimensional issues before I go over any specifics with him.
I'll post pictures tonight as well.
-Joe
Any interest in race seat replicas?Joe
The smooth side will be the side that faces the mold. To reverse that, he would have to take a mold from the underside of the seat instead of the top side. I would love to see some pictures when the seat is finished. G '60 C77 '60 C72 '62 C72 Dream '63 CL72
'61 CB72 '64 CB77 '65 CB160 '66 Matchless 350 '67 CL77 '67 S90 '77 CB400F
That is correct. The first fiberglass guy to have the project took the mold from the bottom of the seat. The pieces I ended up with look like the original mold (or tool in fiberglass speak). I'm hoping I haven't received a copy of the first mold instead. If that is the case, the seat would be narrower than intended. I would imagine that if that was the case that all he would have to do is use one of the pans as the tool instead of vice versa. I also will not be able to test fit it until tomorrow as I won't be near my bike until then. -Joe
Ok, pictures of the seat. A much better job than the first guy I gave the job to. A few notes...the seat is molded in two pieces, the hump and the main base. This is done so I can properly attach the front hook brackets to the pan. The hump will then be epoxied on for a permanent fit. The rear butt stop will be cut out of steel and connected to the rear mount with the use of an L-bracket. Any pressure from the butt stop is distributed to the actual bike frame through the rear mount and applies less force the fiberglass. All the corners and edges are squared off and straight from this pan and hump. I will be doing the final contouring and adjusting with the pan on the bike so all the lines match up.
I'll have more information tomorrow on what we can do about the backwards configuration of the finished side. -Joe   Shot of the unfinished underside. You can feel the texture of the fiberglass but it's not rough to the point where you can't rub your hand on it.: 
Just an update...I spoke with the fiberglass guy the other day. I explained to him the problem and what needed to get done. He responded with sighs and groans and overall heartloss in the project. I might have had some sort of sympathy for him if I hadn't sent him a load of pictures describing exactly what needed to be done with visual illustrations on the images and several phone conversation going over the pictures and actual labels on the parts that I sent him. After thinking about it, I probably should have been harder on him.
Anyway, the end result is that he's going to go back over the mold and see what can be done. He is suppose to get back to me when/if he has a solution to the issue. I'm hoping that doesn't take two weeks. -Joe
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
