My butt is old and skinny .. there, I said it. As such, 40 miles on the stock plank of wood would have me moaning to myself and batting back the tears, so I decided to do something about it. Sheepskin butt pads are nothing new, an old tried and tested product but I had an idea on a slight variation. All the ones I’d ever seen were either a sheepskin by itself or with a foam wedge fitted beneath, like this one. I didn’t want the extra height that would come with the foam wedge and I also had the idea that a gel pad might provide better long distance comfort for my overly sensitive pressure points. And I now believe I was right.
May I introduce the GRENADIER BUTT GUARD, named after the British regiment that wears bearskin caps, that I thought rather resembled my new seat cover.
OK, let me show you how I made it and from what, just in case anyone is remotely interested! Firstly, I took some mil grade webbing and contact glued some high quality velcro to it to create 4 bomb proof straps.
Next was to cover this gel pad that I purchased from Amazon.
I’d heard of these pads getting sticky when placed directly under the seat material so I left the thin plastic on the pad but also decided to cover it with material to help glue it to the sheepskin. I looked around at what I had and my eyes alighted upon a bag of Domke Wraps.
These are used for wrapping photographic lenses whilst in transit or storage and I had a few old ones that had become too thin to use for their intended purpose and would otherwise have been binned. I’d kept them just in case they might prove useful and when trying two of the small ones, one bottom, one top, it turns out they were the perfect size!
I sewed these together to form a bag, inserted the gel pad and sewed the fourth side. I made sure the fit was exactly snug. From there it was just to put everything together using strong contact glue and working hard to mask off the sheepskin as contact glue is not something you want in fur..
If you look at the contour of the base of the T7 seat it goes along from the rear and then raises about 10mm and along again to the front. I placed the first straps so they would sit on that “S” bend. This stops the pad from moving backwards. The rear straps pulled around the rear, preventing the pad from moving forwards.
Here’s the underside with straps and gel pad all glued in.
Now to try it!
I’m very pleased with the look.
It could easily have looked like a dog’s dinner but it actually looks made for this seat.
The gel pad works brilliantly and is still fairly low profile once sat on.
All in all a good result. My butt was very grateful. As the Americans would say: “Grenadier Butt Guard: thank you for your service!”
