Swiz

This was my first time recovering a Selle Italia Turbo saddle and my first time using glue with the outer layer, I used fabric adhesive which cause problems because of it's curing time is too short and I need time to work the leather into the corners and around the rail. I've used cobblers tacks for the nose and the back corners. I'm OK with the finished product. There are a bunch of imperfections which I can live with - this saddle will go on my bike. One of my padding repairs shows through but the other two were fairly good.  Big thanks to Reverse Garbage for the leather. Next time I'll be using cobblers glue.

I recovered this Kashimax Sports saddle in red vinyl from Reverse Garbage for the bike I built  for my mate Tony.  Snug in its Swiz box There's the branding hidden away It was really hard work! I had to use shoe tacks. Very hard on the hands. Looking nice I'll post photos of Tony's bike when he's done the decals.

I've been asked to have look at non slip, and hard wearing materials for polo bike saddles. I have been experimenting with spinnaker repair tape for a while with some success. Like many people I was concerned that the tape would leave glue on my arse or unwind itself. But after heavy use and hot and wet weather the tape has shown itself to be very hardy and resilient. I buy mine from my local chandlery/boating store. It comes in a range of colours and has a satinee finish. In the above shot you can see my Selle San Marco - Laser. This saddle has a gusset style system that is difficult to re-cover using staples so is ideal for tape.  

I have been working on a custom t-shirt method this year but have been incredibly negligent about taking photos of finished shirts. So I've taken some shots of the original designs with my new camera. The method involves using a light box and dye/paint pens. I primarily use Fibracolor brand pens that come in sets of 8 colours. As you can see I use tonal dropout images in one colour to keep things simple while keeping the shape and detail in an image. I drape the t-shirt over a clear perspex screen with a flourescent bulb directly underneath. The die is applied directly to the fabric and is fixed by using a hairdryer then ironing the image before washing. Most light boxes use white perspex to diffuse light behind your work but in this situation the back layer of the t-shirt acts as diffuser. It is important not to stretch the t-shirt as it distorts the image. Unlike screen printing which applies dye/paint to the top surface of the t-shirt fabric. This method dyes the fabric itself w...

This is the most recent saddle to be completed, an old diamond back Velo MTB saddle. I trekked out to Archerfield to check out vinyl samples only to be very disappointed ! $28/metre for the wrong colour, and too thick! I also looked around for 4mm shoe tacks with not luck. I decided to check out Reverse Garbage just in case their selection of vinyls had improved. Going to RG proved to be a good move! I found some soft mid green leather look vinyl and grape purple vinyl. Later I discovered that I had a little jar of shoe tacks hidden among my collected bits and pieces. I had been reading recently about the elastic qualities of upholstery vinyl and how most are mono elastic having much more stretch along the weft of the backing fabric. I aligned the warp along the length of the saddle when cutting out the vinyl. This allowed me to use the elasticity in the weft to stretch around the most difficult part of the saddle shell around the back near the rail fixing points. I was able to work...

Erik from Gear Brisbane sold the first of my upcycled saddles a few days ago and I'm stoked! I had been preparing for the worst and bracing myself for disappointment. I have been slack about getting something on the blog and hadn't even checked the CD of photos my photographer friend Darran Childs-Brown had taken for me at The Crosstown Eating House recently. The saddle (I call it Blue Boy) has recycled padding reinforced with heat extreme temperature resistant and uneven surface conforming tape from venture tape. I've used a rare unprinted tennis racket cover in bright blue (maybe you can tell me which specific hue?). Above you can see the different phases of the upcyling process. I haven't taken detailed photos of the of the upholstery stage as my technique is rather messy at the moment (something for the future I think). Poor planning has meant that the saddle has some rough edges like the cheese cloth layer showing through underneath, and there's some slight p...