I'll bet that almost anyone who's built a boat or two can do this for you. You can actually do it yourself if you have an hour or two. Different folks like different things to sit on. For me, the wedges and the foam pillows (such as "Happy Bottom") don't work at all well; they cause that circulation cutoff you're experiencing. Many people feel perfectly comfortable using only a 1/2 inch simple foam pad on the bottom of their boat. But it's really easy to make a custom-molded seat which fits your own rear end, starting with a block of good quality closed-cell foam. I like to glue up a block about 16 inches by 16 inches, 4 inches thick, sit on it, mark out where my "sit down bones" were, and start carving. However - I know that many excellent seats have been made starting with a 12 X 12 inch piece of 3 inch thick foam, and that's much less trouble to do. These seats are carved in a sort of ellipitc bowl configuration, leaving a **slight** ridge in the center. Especially for men, be very careful not to leave more than a very slight ridge; otherwise you run the risk of the "bicycle seat phenomenon" which can cause some permanent health problems. The sides of the bowl never get vertical, but maintain an outward-sloping angle from the center, so your hip bones are gripped securely but not painfully tight. The depth of the bowl is such that only about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the foam remains on the thinnest parts of the bottom when you're finished. If you go all the way through the foam, no worries - just glue a 1/4 or 1/2 inch thickness of foam on the bottom and feather the edges of that on the underside of the seat. The reason for starting out with a 16 X 16 inch piece of foam is that it gives you the opportunity to maintain a 1 or 1 1/2 inch lip of foam around the edges of the completed seat, and to extend the seat forward a slight bit if you want to - but be careful not to leave a lip of foam at the front edge of the seat, which could push up into your thighs, of course. Do this carving outside. You'll be amazed at the volume of tiny bits of foam "sandings" you generate, and you'll be very frustrated at how difficult it is to clean them all up if you do it inside. The foam sandings mixed with Cabosil or Microlite or silica microballoons make a good light thickener for end-pours and so forth. The block should be secured to something else, like a piece of scrap wood which you can kneel on, because if it's unsecured it will tend to fly or spin all over the place as you carve. Use several small bits of hotmelt glue to secure the foam block, then just cut off or melt the little blobs of hotmelt when you're done. Carving can be done with several different things; the easiest, I think, is a heavy gauge disc of wire brush, attached to a variable speed rotary drill or a small handheld grinder, used very lightly and very carefully. A broken-off piece of Sureform plane works. The serrated edge of a diving knife works. And so on. "sharkskin" or a 40 grit emery paper is nice when you're all finished carving, to give a relatively smooth edge. If you like esthetics more than usefulness you can cover your seat in stretchy black cloth like the cloth which is sold for loudspeaker covers - but I prefer to leave the seat just "as is". The finished seat can be secured in your boat with Velcro (try to get the marine version), or contact cement. I like to use Velcro until I'm certain just where I want the seat to be. Bill Hansen Ithaca NY *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Hi, My seat is a simple ThermaRest sport seat, a Thermarest pad just approx. 12 x 15 inches (not to be confused with these things you can buy to transforma sleeping pad into a camp chair). First I was a bit sceptical, but now after using it for a year I have to admit it is the most comfortable seat I ever found in a kayak. A plus is that it gives also pretty good insulation to the cold this time of the year. Cheap (~15$), not much work to get it into your boat (just glued velcro on the pad and the bottom of my boat), adjustable, and no problem with numb feet, leg or whatever (so far and for me). Cheers Ulli (All spelling errors are intentional and are there to show new and improved ways of spelling old words.) Dr. Ulli Hoeger Dept. Physiology and Biophysics Dalhousie University Halifax, B3H4H7, Nova Scotia Canada Phone I : 902-494-2673 Fax: 902-494-1685 Phone II :902-488-6796 http://is.dal.ca/~uhoeger *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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