Shouldn’t do - it’s well below the temperature where that would happen (another good reason for using boiling water - I actually initially considered putting it in the oven). Certainly nothing I could detect either - you can generally smell the fumes emitted by plastic (and see the smoke), and I have plenty of experience of that :o
If it did release fumes that would make the project pretty pointless anyway (even if you were using proper fume extraction and PPE), as that would be a sign of the plastic breaking down and losing strength.
Last night I rode my 36er with the ghetto flat seat, worked very well, no noticeable increase in flex over the original KH Freeride, handling was predictable, hands free or with a handle. I ended up using a sligtly flatter seat angle, 8-10 degrees, though I think this is not directly comparable to a Flatfish as they have a different “curve” relative to the seat post mount.
I find the Freeride foam to more comfortable on my sit bones, but less comfortable at the crotch, this is likely due to the seat base and foam being slightly “fuller” at the back and wider at the waist/nose. I will probably do another seat boil over the weekend and look at making another thin foam seat.
Anyone wanna trade some foam? KH Freeride for a KH flat/street?
Just finished reassembling the Qu-Ax standard seat from my 24" Luxus Uni.
I have three Qu-Ax seats (old standard, standard, Freeride) and this old standard was the worst so far (had to wear at least to cycling shorts to be able to ride more than 10 minutes) and the cover needed to be reseated anyway (always had some wrinkles on front and rear sides).
So today i brought the seat to work, removed the cover, removed the foam, removed the steel plate and put the base into a big electrical boiling pot (luckily we bought one years ago for the “Glühwein”-stall at the companies christmas party).
Just before the water was boiling the base felt flexible enough to be put into between some pieces of wood into the bench vice/vise, steel plate was flattenend with another bench vise/vice.
Some hour later i took the base, found out that the holes from the steel plate and the base are still lined up correctly and tried to put everything back together. For now the cover is only held in place by 4 staples in the front half and by the front and rear bumper (will have to do more clips once i’m at home where i have a decent stapler) but it’s good enough for test riding now.
Will post some pics with this one compared to my two other Qu-Ax seats.
Can’t wait to try it, maybe i’ll flat-boil the other two seats over the next weekend.
Greetings
Byc
P.S.: My co-worker was looking at the seat and then asked me with a puzzled look " Butt fun?" in response to my puzzled looked he then showed my the Qu-Ax logo (a big one with the text “Only One - But Fun!” in it)
Well, found my stapler, finalized the cover and did my first testrides.
With the 20". First things i noticed was that i was surprisingly aware of my testicles, familiar to the feeling i had when i started riding the unicycle. But this time it had nothing to do with “the saddle is in the way, have to move everything up and aside with my pants”, now it’s more like “there’s plenty of room ahead so don’t worry about anything”.
Wow!
Feels super riding the 20" indoors (even with this most uncomfortable of my seats before boiling it), can’t wait to do this to the seat of the 26".
If I don’t go skiing this weekend I’ll be doing another Freeride flat seat, this time with an adjustable seat post plate bolted on.
I want to see if I can get the seat base even flatter, so I’m going to block the ends and force the seat past flat; counter bend, then let it cool and see what I get.
I’ll trim the sides first, just so it flattens easier.
I have a heat gun that hasn’t been used since I got out of kayaking, might even try some fancy seat mods, like a narrower waist, downturned nose…
I’m at work this weekend, so hopefully i have plenty of time to do the second seat.
This time i also intended to do it extra flat, try to preapare some wood-thingie to bend it past flat (had only some loose block arranged last time). Would also like to aim for a specific angle between seat and seatpost.
Thought about using a heat gun too, but i doubt that it warms up the material even enough to bend nicely.
But boiling water “surrounds” the base and softens it evenly, all at once; the heat gun’s small nozzle can only heat small areas at a time. So as soon as you move it to the next spot, the previously heated area cools back down. The heat gun can also melt the plastic very easily if held in one spot or too close. Boiling method is far better.
You won’t need more heat (about 90-100° C is enough to make bend with ease), with water you get it evenly heated, you can leave it in there for some time so it’s the same temperature through and through without the risk of overheating anything.
I didn’t cut away anything before and after flattening the base, therefore the inside became a little bit narrower at the seatpost mounting point so i had to use smaller washers once foam and cover had been remounted.
After some riding (nightshift today) the seat is becoming uncomfortable (i am wearing my regular jeans, never used this trousers with this seat for such a long tiime) but i think that’s due to the foam. My other Qu-Ax standard (the still curved one in the pics) was more comfy (also has another cover material) can’t really say if the foam is softer or harder, just different. Very curious how this one rides once i boiled it, and if flattening it even more will make it even more comfortable.
The way i bent my seat (not completely flat as you can see in the pics, it slightly springs back when you release the pressure) i only bent the reinforcement plate accordingly, reinserted the screws (it doesn’t have inserts like the new KH seats) i had no problems reattaching it to the base and mounting the font bumper. The plate doesn’t extend over the seat post mount to the rear bumper, but if it did i think that this would be no problem too.
I tried this mod with a spare KH base, current version. It was a bit tricky getting the steel plate to fit after pounding it flat, and boiling the base. So I used the bolts to pull it into place, which caused the base to curve again, but not a lot. So once again I put the base with the plate on it in the vice and left it there for about an hour. Not totally flat, but much less curve now. And this is with the nimbus gel foam. It would look even flatter with the kh foam, but I didn’t have an extra one handy. Interesting experiment.
It wont hurt anything! I did mine last night with a FFR and just tooled around in the basement and its better but i hate FFR foam its to soft, so im working on doing my street today at some point
Just finished my second seat (the Qu-Ax standard with the better foam) and the initial test are promising. Feels even better to ride now.
Hopefully i’ll do the Qu-Ax Muni saddle this weekend.
It’s an easy mod, you don’t need mauch tools (a big pot does help) and if anything fails you can easily convert it back by just heating it up again.
Could you please give me one advice? Do you trimming foam before putting it back? Can you make some pictures of trimming and stappling (for QuAx saddle) process?
Thanks in advance!
in response to my puzzled looked 
he then showed my the Qu-Ax logo (a big one with the text “Only One - But Fun!” in it)
