640 Seat leather cut or rolled?

[AdminGuy]

Does the seat leather on a 640 have a rolled edge or a cut edge? White thread? Thanks.

[Jack]

The seat on my '41 is rolled, white thread. It's been judged twice that I know of and the seat was apparently correct.

[AdminGuy]

Thanks Jack. I leaning toward rolled. I think it will weather better.

[AdminGuy]

Larry says a 640 civilian was cut (open edge). So that's the change over point I guess. With burnished edges and treated properly they weather fine. Kevin says - Tan or Brown is correct. Tan scuffs and stains easily. So brown it is for me.

[AdminGuy]

In 1940 Indian had gone to a sponge rubber seat padding and these seats used a thinner leather with a rolled edge. This was not successful and they only used this saddle for part of the year and went back to the cut edge and hair padding which the Army required for their military bikes. We have no documentation about this, only word of mouth. Anyway, we do not do rolled edges on any of our saddles.
    As for weathering, I think that either edge will hold up the same.
Hope that helps,

Larry Heilman

(Heilman Saddles)web site

[AdminGuy]

From this attached picture I hope you can see my confusion. Does the 640 civilian image look black or dark brown? I guess it's dark brown. The earily advert photos were painted over and retouched to enhance print reproduction. Sometimes distorting the image.

640 "45" Sport Scout

39 seat was dark brown/tan- cut edge,
40 "Air-tex" sponge rubber-rolled edge- brown/tan, Mil. cut edge
41 brown/tan-rolled edge

American military 640 - cut edge -brown/tan
Now in the Canadian military photo c.1941 doesn't that seat look black. Bike shown is a 640. gas tank rubbed w/ oil - so a tonal range darker than olive drab, and the seat looks darker than that. What do you think?

[AdminGuy]

More leather tech. from Larry Heilman. My total ignorance is obvious. But I'm slowly getting educated. *Foam rubber used today is much better quality I would think.

Paul Edwards wrote:
>Hi Larry, Why was the rolled edge not successful.

Hi Paul,
It wasn't the rolled edge that was a problem. It was the sponge rubber
padding that didn't hold up very well and the fact that the army wanted
the older hair padding used for their bikes. The hair padding saddles
used a thicker less stretchable leather which doesn't make a rolled edge
very well. (we have tried to do a rolled edge with this leather and you
wind up with lots of triangle cutouts on the bottom edge in order to
make it around all the curves) The sponge rubber and foam rubber (started
after WWII) saddles used a thinner more stretchable leather which makes
a good rolled edge.
Thanks,
Larry

[AdminGuy]

Rocky Halter and Toney Watson also say Brn. Look for upturned edge.

[Louggle]

Hi,

I have a 30 scout 101 and was wondering if the seat on my bike (pictured) is original? After reading through this thread, the only thing on my bike that has not been re-done is the seat and I am wondering what the correct color should be, when I redo the seat. Also, should I have it re-done exactly as it is pictured. IMG_20200123_233711_380.jpg