Using a knife with a long serrated blade, trim the excess padding off flush to the edge of the seat pan, using the outside edge of the pan as your guide. (As pictured below)

Sculpting the contour of the seat
Time now to put your artistic skills to the test. This is where you’ll carve out the shape of your seat. The goal is to make the seat flow with the curves of your bike, while at the same time, making it feel comfortable on the old keester. To achieve that, you need to approach the job like a sculptor. Chiseling a little, then stepping back for a look, chiseling a little more, trying it on the bike, taking it off, repeating this process over and over until you’ve got it just right.


As I said, you’ll approach the job like a sculptor, but instead of a hammer and chisel, you’ll be using a 4″ mini grinder with a sanding disc on it. I find that a 120 grit sanding disc works good. Start off by rounding the sides then work your way to the center. Keep your disc as flat as possible to avoid the disc grabbing and slicing into the neoprene. The key is to take your time, taking small amounts off at a time until you get the shape just right. You want the surface to be smooth with fluid curves. Any lumps or ridges will stick out like a sore thumb once you have leather stretched tight over it.

By the time you’re finished sculpting your neoprene seat padding, it should look something like the illustration above. The next step is to cover it with some leather, which will be part 2 of this tutorial.

Thinking about building a Mutant Buell? You’ll want to get a copy of the Timothy Remus book, How To Build a Cheap Chopper . Featured in the book is a step-by-step build sequence, complete with photos showing how to build a Redneck Mutant Buell. I kept it in my garage and referenced it more than a few times as I built my Mutant Buell. Click on the link below to get it from Amazon.

How to Build a Cheap Chopper

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve no doubt heard about Eric Buell’s latest release for the 2008 model year, the 1125R. And if you’ve had a chance to check out the spec sheet you’ll know that unlike previous versions, the Sportster based engine has been replace by a fire-breathing 146HP @10,500 Rpm Rotax engine. Now I know there’s a lot of you purists out there are saying ….”But it aint a Harley”. Well, I was a little squeamish on that too but….146HP…10500 Rpm….F@#K around…. How can you not want to chop that? Unforskinatley, with the first ones just hitting the showroom floors, it may be a while before any bent ones start finding their way onto Ebay. I for one will be keeping an eye out though. I haven’t had a chance to see one in the flesh yet, but all that will change next week when I go to the Vancouver Motorcycle show. I’ll be posting full review when I return.

Check out the 1125 Gallery
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1125 Promo Video

My Mutant Buell Project
Here’s some photos of my Redneck Mutant Buell chopper build. I worked on the bike in my spare time taking roughly a year from start to finish. Mutant was completed and registered in June of 2007. Check out the Photos

Year/Model : 2007 Redneck Mutant Buell
Engine: 1200 cc Buell Thunder Bolt
Frame: Redneck Engineering Mutant Rigid
Paint: PPG Viper Silver/Black racing stripe
Frame Color: High gloss black Powdercoat
Front End: Stock Buell Inverted
Brakes: Buell
Wheels: Stock Buell Polished Aluminum
Intake: Force Winder
Rubber: Avon 200mm
Gas Tank: Stinger Customs
Oil Tank: Redneck
Fenders: Front- Buell Rear-Redneck
Hand Controls: Arlen Ness
Foot Controls: Razer billet chrome black powdercoat
Carburator:42mm Mikuni
Exaust: Basanni Pro Street
Ignition: Ultima Single fire
Starter: High torque 1.4
Mirror: Arlen Ness chrome billet
Grips/Throttle: Joker Machine billet chrome