Seat of Dreams

[Reef_fisher]

Having bad knees and a stuffed back is no fun after pounding out and back to the reef (60ks round trip). I usually suffer for two to three days after each trip. After looking around at all the boat shops from Cairns to Townsville and finding nothing suitable in a chair setup to help ease the pain I decided to make my own. A quick trip to the motorcycle wreckers for ideas had me walking out with a set of motorcross forks complete with triple clamps. I got the seatbase swivel and seat from BCF and the rest I welded up from scrap metal at home. The result is a very comfy fully dampened ride which leaves me with a healthy back and knees. I now no longer have to suffer for my hobby.

[seabug]

Hi Reef-fisher
Thanks for sharing the seat info.
Makes one wonder why nobody has done it before.
Congratulations .
Surely a lot easier on the body.
How much do the forks sell for?

Regards
seabug

[Tassie JR]

great seat and would have been cheap as well.

cheers tassie JR

[Blackened]

G'day

Fantastic idea there, always great to see some creative constructive work carried out.

At what cost does this setup come at?

Dave

[rubba]

mate my father would love somthing like this his knees are shot loves fishing but this would be great for him youre onto something mate

[purple patch2]

Fantastic Idea R_F

[andrew&lucy]

lucy mite need a set, looks like she will have another operation 3 in 8months on the knee. not good andrew.

[juju]

Seen a setup once made up with ss springs and gass struts.....there is a market out there for something like that

[Reef_fisher]

Hi all, surprised at the response, to answer a few questions, 2nd hand forks $150(new set $1400) seat $50, swivel base about $20 the rest was gal steel that I had in my metal scrap bin. And of course a welder. The only problem was the fuel tank under the floor, I ended up refitting the centre console about another foot forward (as far as it could go) and then had the room just in front of the tank.
I don't know if I am the first with this idea but have heard of people using the rear shockies to make up a seat and thought the forks would be easier.

Basicaly all I had to do was work out how to attach the seat to the forks and with the triple clamps the attachment points are already there, you just have to use bolts longer than the original. Then make a mounting block for the floor, grind off the lumps and bumps on the lower legs to fit a round hole.

The unit remains fully adjustable, rate of dampening depends on fork oil density, and air charge to lower or increase how much or when the dampening starts.

Field tested in river and out to reef. The stunning thing is nobody sells anything like it. The great thing is I don't mind if anyone here copies it, I put it up here to help other sufferers of back and knee pain.

[Marlin_Mike]

Patent them and flog them make a dollar mate

[Spaniard_King]

Hi Reef Fisher,

firstly congrats on a top effort in coming up with what looks handy bit of gear

I have but one question Can you explain how it is mounted /secured to the floor. This would be my only concern.

cheers

Garry

[Reef_fisher]

Seabug have sent pm, first time doing it hope you get it, if not let me know.

Spaniardking, the floor mount consists of a plate steel with two holes cut in to except two 150mm gal pipe a little bit bigger diameter than the bottom fork legs, remember the fork has mounting bits and pieces for motorbike parts. All these bits need to be ground off. The fork leg bottom are cast alloy and are defineatly not perfectly round. I then worked out how much lower than floor I could put forks in before they hit hull then backed then of a bit. I had a bit of a problem with mounting bottom stops etc and decided to keep it simple and fitted a bracket between fork legs at bottom above the floor and fastened it in with six stainless hose clamps. This setup prevented the forks from going any further into the floor.
The forks were then put into floor bracket with six mm thick rubber strip fed in at the same time wrapped around the bottom of fork legs, remember the forks are not round so you have to put something in there to compensate for it. This also has the benefit of stopping the setup from coming out of mount without a pretty hefty pull. I am 110kg the thing hasn't moved since I put it in. I went to the reef yesterday in 15-20knots and had a great ride, can't say the same for the deckie.

With all the questions I might try to take some closeups tomorrow so that you can see the finer detail.

[seabug]

"Seabug have sent pm, first time doing it hope you get it, if not let me know."

Hi Reef-fisher,
PM come through OK.

Thanks.

Regards
seabug