On a good note, someone gave me a well used, badly worn San Marco Rolls to try to save. I wish I took some pics! It had holes in the leather on every corner, cracks in the leather throughout, rust on the rails, and a small bend on the rear trim plate. What a challenge!
My best riding saddle so far has been a San Marco Squadra, the Rolls' successor. This was the extra push to try and do a good job on this Rolls to make it my permanent riding saddle. I have a Squadra in black in great condition - I'm not touching it!
Removing the leather took a long time. Since it was cracked all over, it came out in tiny little pieces. A heatgun REALLY helped in keeping the foam together. There was still divots so I went over it with the sanding-block. Plus, a big chunk was removed from the nose from a crash. Overall, I did alot of shaping to keep it from looking horrible. The ending shape actually came out good, I flattened the top of the saddle quite a bit.
The stretching was the regular thing, spray adhesive on top, stretch, heatgun, Woodweld underneath, trim. The underside of the nose was different than other saddles I've done. It was just flat underneath, no tucking the leather under-and-up like a Turbo. I used some good stretching on the nose's sides and just folded the front and Woodwelded the rest on top of the stretch leather. It came out good.
As for the rear trim plate, I totally destroyed the original rivets removing the trim, forcing me to find a replacement solution. A quick trip to the local hardware store yeilded a very nice and simple solution: brass nails and flat speed nuts! The head of the nails were a nice shape. They fit perfectly in the existing holes. The speed nuts slid on as tight as they went. I trimmed them down and coated them with a gob of 5-minute epoxy gel from the .99 store.
Overall, I'm very happy with the results. It was the most challenging, time-consuming recover yet but I think it's my favorite! It feels nice because of the flat top and the leather matches my bar-tape. I'm a happy camper.
Oh, and some pics:
