The Chopper Builders Handbook – Chopper Saddles

Protective Finish

Once the mount system has been decided upon and installed its time to put some kind of finish on the bare steel pan to keep it from rusting.

The best finish I’ve found so far is to treat the pan like any other piece of sheet metal on the bike and to apply an etching primer to the degreased steel. The pan isn’t going to be a showpiece so a good durable color finish can be applied out of a spray can and one of the best products I’ve found is VHT automotive accessory paint, the type used for brake calipers and engine blocks. Appliance paint also works well but takes a long time to dry. The VHT dries in about three hours.

I typically use black but since it doesn’t show up to well in photographs I ended up buying something called ‘cast aluminum’ for this particular project. It’s not bad but it’s much thinner than the black and runs if you just look sideways at it and I got some really bad runs. Fortunately they are on the inside surface where they won’t be seen.

It should be pointed out that many saddle makers don’t bother with painting the pan, especially if the bottom is going to be covered with some kind of material but from my experience the unprotected metal will start to rust very rapidly. I strongly suggest that you at least primer the metal with something like Rustoleum Red for instance.

Regardless of what finish you use test it on some scrap metal to be sure that it’s compatible with the adhesives your using before you get committed.

Part III

Saddle Design

Before we talk about foam and upholstery we should take a moment to discuss saddle designs in general and one of the best ways to build up comparative data is to simply search the Internet for chopper seats. As I mentioned before pictures by themselves won’t give you a good sense of dimensions or proportions however and as a result the most common mistake many people make with their first few pans is to make them to small.

For example when a friend of mine saw our pan for this project his first remark was that it looked too large. When we put it on the frame he was surprised how much different it looked when he saw it in conjunction with the whole frame. He was flabbergasted when I put it up against one of the smaller stock factory seats that was gigantic in comparison.

You have to trust the dimensions of your frame rails for the width of the pan and you should likewise trust the longitudinal frame dimension from tank to fender. These two measurements define the outermost working area. If your pan is much more than 15% smaller than this area your seat is probably to small for comfort.

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