The Work - the fifth part

Version 3 of the seat went like this:

I knew after doing the first two seats what the problems were and maybe how to get around them. The first problem was the fact that the seat, even when covered, was too squishy for me. I figured the solution would be to wrap the BBs in something thinner, like felt or some other fabric. This would cause there to be less give between the outermost fabric and the tubes of BBs. Next, the problem was the unions of the tubes. With all the tubes connected to a common base like they were in the first two versions, it was difficult to staple in between them. I figured the solution to this problem was to keep them all separate until they get the final cover on them. This way, the spaces between the tubes would be easy to staple down and look very clean when finished. SO, here is how that went...First I had to make the tubes. Like before, I had collected a number of toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls in preparation for doing this. I took one roll and one flat piece of cardboard and wrapped the felt around it twice for added security. With the tubes having flat bottoms, they would be less inclined to move about and easier to affix to the seat base.

So, here are the tubes in position (started with 8 this time instead of 7):

 To make the ends tight and not let any BBs out, I made two of these shapes for each tube. I affixed one, filled the tube and then glued the other one on.

 Here's the difference in the tubes. One has two half inch thick pieces of foam between the BBs and the ass of the person riding it...

 Filling these suckers should have been easy but there were way more spills than there should have been

 Camo colored BBs seemed like the right choice for the project (they also happened to be the cheapest ones). In total, there are about 17,000 BBs in the 7 sections:

 With 5 of the tubes filled it was starting to become obvious that 8 would not fit...

 So I pared it down to 7...

 Time to get them on the seat base and put the covering (this time using a fake alligator skin):

 As you can see, it was much easier to staple in between the rolls when there wasn't another one in the way...

 Obviously, I cut the back end a little short (I actually started with too much overhang and finished with not enough) but this section will get covered by the end of the build so no worries...

 Double hospital corners really pulled it off. It isn't SUPER professional, but I think it looks pretty damn good...

 When I had finished the seat, it was time to start on the hinged tail section hinges. I came up with a pretty ingenious solution of double hinges and here is how it works:

Genius if I do say so myself...

Next up is the forks and trying to figure out all the pieces that will be going on the bike: handlebars, headlight, controls, bash plate, etc...

The Work - a la quattro

So after the last round with the seat, I wanted to give this try another go. I filled the whole seat and fit it to the seat pan and sat it on the bike to see how it looks...

 Then I cut the back piece off to have it be less of a burden...

And now, to start the covering of the second version of the seat...

 All the added hardware for mounting the seat...

 Adding the BB filled foam to the seat base...

 With the cover on the seat (hospital tucks towards the back). I still wasn't happy with this seat because it was too squishy. I wanted a hard seat so that it would always look good and time and pressure won't squish it down and deform it...

 It just didn't look good...

Next up will be version 3 of the seat...the one that finally worked out...

The Work - part 3

So the next step was to make the seat. I had an idea from the very beginning to make the seat out of tubes of bb's (like the kind you shoot in airsoft guns). I wasn't thinking comfort, but style. I thought they would make nice hard lines and come out very clean and always look filled up (even after you've sat on them for a while). My first idea was to use foam for the "mold" and then fill the tubes all from one side with the BBs. This DID NOT work out. You can see from the next couple of pictures that the base and the sides weren't the problem. The problem was when I went to put the top piece on that it had to be glued in too tight of spaces and made the tubes too big and too squishy...

 Then, filling it with BBs began. This is obviously before I decided to scrap the first idea...

 Here you can see how bad it came out...

 Attempt #2 involved making cardboard tubes and then putting the top on and then filling the tubes with bbs and then removing the tubes and sealing it shut. This also DID NOT work...

 it looked okay but it was way too squishy for my tastes...

 With the repainted side badges on...

 And the finished product for seat v2.0

The next post will show the third and last version of the seat which involved no foam....