Seat repair / restoration

[bobafett]

Anyone done any seat restoration - couldn't find a sticky 

I have a couple of seats with cracks in them - any sugestions what to use - some sort of coloured sealant / glue / filler - I think i'll try the dye method as described for the tuff wheels but its the fixing cracks and scuffs part i wanna know about.
Can you sand plastic to get the minor scuffs out ? What grade of paper ?

[Goose1]

There's a guy on Burnerworld...............Russ J , who does a cracking job at restoring Aeroyal and other seats, sands them down, they look ace. He won't sort cracks though!

[MartyC]

Seats are usually made of nylon so can be very difficult to repair cracks.  Plastic bumper repair techniques may work but I've never seen anyone try it; worth a go as you've nothing to lose.  Sanding seats on the main body surface usually removes the textured finish, if your seat has a smooth finish then I'd go for it through the various grades up to 2000 grit, finish it off with a plastic polish like the one from Meguairs  .

[bobafett]

Sounds good i'll give it a go - the first repair is a black kashimax aero it's not in too bad a state no cracks on that one but a bit of tail rub where the bikes been resting on it - like you say i think i'll go down the grades see what kind of finish i can achieve - i was gonna try "Back To Black" - you know that shit you put on your car tyres to see if that brought the colour out ?

As for the other project that could be a bit trickier - the crack is on the topside of the seat between two of the air vent holes - i was hoping to try and fill it with some kind of coloured sealant and then dye the whole seat (which is currently a bit faded) back to it's former glory.............

[MartyC]

Sounds good i'll give it a go - the first repair is a black kashimax aero it's not in too bad a state no cracks on that one but a bit of tail rub where the bikes been resting on it - like you say i think i'll go down the grades see what kind of finish i can achieve - i was gonna try "Back To Black" - you know that shit you put on your car tyres to see if that brought the colour out ?

As for the other project that could be a bit trickier - the crack is on the topside of the seat between two of the air vent holes - i was hoping to try and fill it with some kind of coloured sealant and then dye the whole seat (which is currently a bit faded) back to it's former glory.............

The aero should come up quite well, Steve P posted a thread about a repair he's done on a Shot Gun II seat, so long as you are careful about how much you rub down it should come up a treat.  Also, use Dylon to restore the colour; there's a great thread by Waxintaxin in the restoration stickies that tells you how to do it but essentially it's a couple of the same colour dylon dyes, salt and simmering hot water plus  a few hours of simmering in the pot for the seat 

[toys19]

Nylon is great for plastic welding, done shed loads of it before. Use a soldering iron the underside and just sort of wipe it around gently. It might pay to trim along the edges of the saddle to provide a bit of filler material and then use that to push into the crack from underneath. If you do muck it up too badly you can always sand and polish out the mess you have made. If you use silcone filler or anything like that it will not take the dye as well as the nylon. Nylon is hygroscopic, it absorbs water which is one of the reasons its so good at being dyed, silicone sealer does not absorb water.
There is a book here all about plastic repair with a section on plastic welding. Practice on some scrap before you muck up your lovely seat...
http://www.urethanesupply.com/pdf/thebook.pdf

[bobafett]

Great tips toys19 
Definitely think i'll do some practice before i attack my seat with a soldering iron  but it sounds like that may be the way to go - nice one 

[bobafett]

MartyC - thanks for all your help - i've found the threads you told me about and i am now a man on a mission 

[kdw712]

sorry to dig an old one up

but john did you get around to doing this at all
and how did it turn out

pics ?

[bobafett]

Seems to be a few old thread being dug up today Kev 

Never got around to sorting the seat 

It's still here to be done.

Guess I wasn't on as much of a mission as I thought 

[kdw712]

 




 

what about the other threads mentioned ^^^^^

linky's ?

[bobafett]

what about the other threads mentioned ^^^^^

linky's ?

That was just the good old seat dying threads kev - I did get around to dying a Kashi aero for the 84 cali 

But didn't sort the other seat with the crack 

[kdw712]

ah !