BSA Motorcycle
If you are a motorcyclist you know the name BSA. But do you know what those initials stand for?
BSA was founded in 1861 as a arms manufacture. Birmingham Small Arms co. They produced Air guns and shotguns for the military and sporting market.
When the military contracts ended the company got into the motorcycle business. At their peak BSA was the largest motorcycle producer in the world.
These bike are highly prized by many vintage motorcycle riders and collectors.
A down turn in sales coupled with bad investments which included Triumph motorcycles brought the whole group down in 1973.
How to Recover a Motorcycle Seat
My Kawasaki Concours project (like many used motorcycles) came with a badly torn up seat. New seats for a bike are shall we say pricey. So that means this is going to be a reupholster job. Talented reupholsters are again not cheap.
That left little o'l me to do the job. Now my skill with covering seats peaked when as a kid I built a seat for my mini bike out of a piece of plywood and pillow that I covered with a burlap feed sack.
I needed to do some research.
I found out that many of the motorcycle saddle makers also sell replacement covers .
This was good news. Mustang make a cover for the Concours that sells for around $70.00 (beats 400.00 for new a seat) so I ordered one. While wait for it to arrive I peeled off the old cover and all of the duct tape. To my surprise the foam under the cover was in pretty good shape. This is important because if your foam it torn up the seat will never look right and it can be down right uncomfortable. Mustang can rebuild your old seat with new foam for a price.
The instruction that come with the cover are pretty straight forward and the only tool needed is a good heavy duty staple gun. Start at one end and staple the cover to the under side of the seat pan and stretch the cover as you work your way to the other end stapling as you go. This is not a difficult job and it looks great.
Maybe I didn't peak as a kid after all.