Moped seat
Production: MÆNUS
Materials: Vegetable tanned leather
Techniques: Leather tooling, trimming, staining and stitching
Finished: 2018
One of the first bigger leather projects I took on when I had just started practicing leather working was to make a leather seat for my moped. The moped is a Tomos 4L from 1973 which I bought when I was 15 years old. Now, 25 years later, it is still one of my most prized possessions. The standard seat that comes with the moped consists of a rubber seat which is mounted on and stretched over a metal frame. I kept the metal frame, refurbished it and used the rubber seat as a rough template for the leather seat.
Steps taken
The first step was to make patterns for the top and bottom layers of the leather seat based on the original rubber seat. After this I used the patterns to cut out the rough shapes for the top and bottom layer out of the 4-5 mm thick vegetable tanned leather. Next I took the top layer and stamped in the tri-weave design, the border design and additional details using leather stamping tools like bevelers, seeders, edgers and shaders.
After finishing the tooling of the top layer I stitched the top and bottom layer together at the front and the back of the seat. This way I could insert the metal frame pieces for the front and the back in between the two layers of leather. These two metal frame pieces were bolted on the main metal frame of the moped seat, stretching the leather between the two pieces and creating a nicely curved seating area.
Once the leather was properly stretched and mounted between the metal frame I stitched the sides of the leather seat closed and trimmed the edge of the leather all the way around.
Here are some detailed images of the leather moped seat before staining the leather and finishing the edges.
The final step was to stain the leather with an antiquing gel, finishing the edges and waterproofing it. By making multiple passes and adding more stain with each pass I created the color and depth which I was looking for. Using a dark brown leather stain gave the leather a nice, not too uniform, deep brown color and highlighted the leather tooling details.
End result
The result is a truly unique seat for my moped. These seats were and are still used on the classic Puch and Tomos mopeds from the fifties and sixties, but I have never seen a leather version. I love how it looks with the different shades of brown created by antiquing and, not unimportantly, it also provides for a very comfortable ride!
