Student saddle project...

constructive criticism

How do you generate the tension required for the removable membrane to support body weight - the brooks works because it is machine tensioned and a permanent fixture.

I can't see from your model a usable ratchet system for creating the required tension,

the method that is shown would require way too much force, a lever system is going to be inoperable for most people

That's some good criticism. Much better than some of the "worst idea ever" comments i've got so far.

Having tested the lever system myself, I am confident that the mechanism would work... The leather membranes would need to be made from 4-5mm thick cowhide, then soaked, pressed and kiln-dried in a similar way to the Brooks saddles.

I think my main criticisms of my own design are:

• The release mechanism will probably need beefing up a bit.
  
• The frame needs to go on a diet. During FEA I used a total load of 240kg, which led to the frame looking like it does. If I reduced this to 120kg overall it could look a lot more slender...
  
  

Overall I'm pretty happy with it for a student project. It's our job to have slightly more creative (ahem) ideas - if I had just designed a 'normal' saddle my report would have been about 2 paragraphs long and I would have died of boredom shortly after Christmas.