I am, with a little help from Sofa, getting a CF base from bedford unicycles. I wanted to know if there is any way besides contact glue to put an original miyata cover on a CF base. I did a search but didn’t come up with much. All ideas welcome.
duct-tape?
Hey man, You Just need to tighten the wire down as much as possible. that is what I did.
good luck, Zack
At NAUCC in Salt Lake City I saw someone who had used car door edge guards to hold the seat cover on. It looked like it worked well and it looked very good. The car door edge guards are plastic “U” shaped channels that are designed to protect the edge of a car door if you scrape the door on a curb or something.
Here’s a site that shows some of the different shapes available: Sportwing body side molding. Their prices are bad because they sell the stuff in 150’ lengths. You should be able to find stuff in shorter lengths at a local auto care store.
A little contact glue and some edge guard molding should hold the seat cover on nicely. It will also be removable for when you want to change seat covers or do other work inside the seat. If you used something like hot melt glue you’d have a very difficult time removing the seat cover later.
you could seam rip the fold that houses the medal wire and sew it back up with shock cord in there instead. then just tighten it up and it will stay on.
Thanks. I actually used something like this to make a nicer handgrip on another seat. Suprised I didn’t think of it. I prolly got some left.
Cool. Take pictures of the seat build process and then report back about how the door edge guards worked and any problems or issues during the build process.
When I get around to putting a carbon fiber base on my freestyle unicycle my plan is to use the door edge guards to hold the seat cover on. My freestyle seat uses just Miyata foam and a regular Miyata seat cover. No air seat for the freestyle uni.
I’ll do my best. I will actually be putting the seat together at New York Muni Weekend (as thats when I’ll be getting the base). So hopefully someone up there will take pics for me…I don’t have a digital camera.
Any other ideas???
Pictures aren’t absolutely necessary. A text description of how it works out would be good enough. It’s just a way to share the knowledge gained as you fiddle around with a new idea/process.
Hopefully the door edge guards will work well and it will become more common for people to use them when putting a seat together.
Anyone got any other ideas besides the auto door stuff?
Make your own seatcover with shockcord around the bottom with some patterns from Krashin’Kenny. I can send them to you.
I’m a little slow so I can’t tell you how they work. Right now I’ve got the fabric cut out but still have to sew it.
Hey John you said somewhere about putting innertube on the seatpost to prevent the CF cracking…I couldn’t find this post. Mind repeating your advice or linking me?
Cut a section of old tube, about 4 inches long if your using a miyata post. Then flatten it, and punch 4 holes in it, so they line up with the holes of the seat post attachment. Place the piece of tube in between the cf plate and the post.
That work?
I don’t understand how putting car door-edge guards on a CF base will help to hold the cover on. Please illuminate!
I think they are saying put the car door thignies over the cover and the edge of the base. So it will hold it on by clamping it in there…I think.
Well it turned out I was far too busy (read: lazy) to go to an automotive store to pick up the door edge guards that JC recommended. So I tried the method which a few people recommended of putting the original cover on and tightening down the wires to keep it on. Thanks to Dave Stockton for the tips and a few parts. Heres the steps I used.
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Get your seat ready by gathering all your bolts and bumpers…etc. and make sure they function. Put the post on! I was using a KH style post for a miyata base and it turned out that my bolts were too short as the KH seat has more of an arch.(I actually had to take the cover off a few times before I was done because of spinning bolts and bolts that were too short. Planning is key)
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Put the cover on the base loosely. At the front of the seat pull the wire so that both ends are exposed. Make sure you have both out at all times. Now pull both out a few inches (I think I did 3 or so on each side). The more you pull out the tighter your seat will be but the more trouble you will have getting it together. 3 seems to work nicely.
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Start stuffing the cover in where the front handle is. Make sure it is really tight then push the handle down on top of it. It will be hard. Screw the handle on.
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Work the wire onto the seat. It should be hard. If it is not then your cover will be too loose. I used a tire lever in a similar fashion to working a tire bead onto a rim. Concentrate on getting the back part that goes under the bumper on. The sides can sit next to the outside edge of the base for now.
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Once the back is on, stuff it in as much as possilbe as in the front. Put on your rear bumper.
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Using the tire lever again work the sides on. Once they are on the tension in the wire will do quite a nice job keeping the seat on.
I can’t see mine ever needing any extra glue or anything. It works quite well even with the extra material I added to make a nice handgrip for SIF hops.
I will post cheesy webcam pictures later of the finished product. I might take it apart and take step by step pics, but probably not. I don’t want to do it again and have the thing not come out as nice.
I haven’t been using my Miyata Carbon base, but I have recently done the foam onto KH carbon base using the fusion cover.
With the old KH foam (generation 1 or 2), I found it was a really tight fit so I had to shave it around the front. I also cut the foam to half thickness (because I think the KH has way too much foam). It fit really snugly without the need for any tape to hold it in place. I rode it on my 12hr MTB race over the weekend and it performed really well. I’ve finally found my perfect seat.
Ken