After a few years of neglect , my Brooks B17 Imperial Standard was looking a bit worse for wear, and the rivets were rusting off, so the saddle was pulling forward. Time for some care and improvements. I phoned the Brooks Agents in SA, Bike and Saddle in Cape Town, and spoke to Jaco about getting copper rivets, and some Proofride too. Two days later a parcel arrived with the rivets, and after watching a few Youtube videos on how to rivet copper rivets to leather, I set about repairing my saddle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geneD2Xxy5c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wXeWzO7y0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZtRrxsxxao I first used a drill (4.5mm) to remove the rivets, and after punching the rivets out with a small punch. I scrubbed the underside and top of the saddle with saddle soap, to remove 7 years of gunk that had accumulated around the metal bits of the saddle. After it had dried the saddle got given a goodly layer of proofride on the underside and a thin layer on the top. The next step was to rivet the saddle to the nose piece, First I tried using the method in the video, but it didn't seem to work for me. I placed the saddle with the rivet head down, and whacked the back of the rivet with a concave punch. Once the rivet had mushroomed, I turned it over, and with the punch in the vice, whacked the rivet head to shape it to the saddle, with no sharp edges. The result, a much improved looking saddle Before polishing After polishing and mounted to the steel beast
