Recover your favorite saddle

[Jad]

Yeah, for the two saddles I recovered, the thickness made a big difference. I found the trickiest parts at "corners," where material had a chance to bunch up. The thinner the leather, the easier. I think Nessism is right; 1mm.

I found online remnant sellers will give thickness measurement/weight, so there's something to go by.

[weisan]

Cold, wet and rainy, perfect for in-house projects such as these....just finished stripping to bare chicken, ready for next step.



Found this in a thrift store yesterday for $2.50, not sure if it's real leather but it feels "right" for the job.

[rice rocket]

My guess is it would not be real leather.

Shein is one of those companies similar to Temu and AliExpress that puts out low cost goods that direct ship from China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shein

[Louis]

Originally Posted by weisan

Found this in a thrift store yesterday for $2.50, not sure if it's real leather but it feels "right" for the job.

That's for motorcycles, not push bikes.

[d_douglas]

Originally Posted by rice rocket

My guess is it would not be real leather.

Shein is one of those companies similar to Temu and AliExpress that puts out low cost goods that direct ship from China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shein

I would waste your efforts on that - it will not do the job. Even my 14yr old daughter refuses to wear SHEIN clothing - too cheap! I am proud of her for saying that even though it costs me more money

Wei, isn’t Carson Leh located in Austin? Just get a real piece of leather from him and do it right! You’re already stripping the old cover pretty well - go for the right material…

[weisan]

Originally Posted by weisan

we were doing the regular Tuesday group rides yesterday morning and there's a section along the route where for years it has served as an illegal dumping ground for tires, counches, cabinets, clothes, you name it. We never bother to stop for obvious reasons, more often than not we increased the speed and tried to get through it as quickly as possible. Well, yesterday a friend of mine had to stop for a "clothing mechanical" and I didn't want to leave him behind so I stopped and waited 10-20 meters away. Right in front of me was this huge leather couch, with the wind blowing hard, its rear panels were flapping all over the place and that got me thinkin'....
I ripped two pieces off along their seams without much effort, folded them up into a smaller footprint and stuffed them into my rear jersey pockets. By then, my friend John rode up to me, and said "Thanks for waiting,", to which I replied "Don't mention it!" After we got back to the parking lot, I quickly removed the articles and put them inside my car without anyone noticing.

I worked on it this morning. As a first attempt, I think I can be satisfied with the result.

[prototoast]

I love it.

[weisan]

More like this:

[tv_vt]

That looks awesome. Well done!

[mcteague]

Reminds me of this:

Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest: 'Save The Couch' Clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao5wiaze1TQ

Tim

[capt_velo]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

The problem is that we have an IKEA disposable culture going on. My town used to have a few furniture repair people and upholstery repair folks, but they are all out of business.

If you can find someone who repairs chairs and the like, they can probably do it.

It's bad now. WSJ ran a story the other week titled, ["Your New $3,000 Couch Might Be Garbage in Three Years. This Is Why."](https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/couch-...pairs-17cfd724)

The why is fairly obvious, cheap materials and cheap labor.

[mhespenheide]

Nice work!

[weisan]

Second one done. This time it went faster - about 30 mins. Got one more piece of leather left, save for another day.