I have been planning to modify my gnarly seat with some extra padding and a new cover and managed to find a decent used one last week so I can still ride whilst tearing the old seat apart
So, any advice about them staples ? If I pluck 'em out do they get hammered back into the old holes, or what ??
You should be able to find a low price electric stapler at the hardware store. Purchase the same staples used in the current seat. While the electric stapler does not fully seat a staple, it gets it in fair enough... you then set them with something like a nail set or something blunt that will allow you to push the staple home. No need to hammer them, that tends to crush them. Just apply pressure on each staple leg and it will seat.
Also a good pair of needle nose pliers to extract any broken old staples or mis fires when you put the new cover on.
The only other MAJOR point is that when you put the new cover on, you want to start at one end and work along in one direction from both sides. Front to back, or back to front. The seat cover usually dictates what is critical in lining up like a seam or an edge. If it has neither, you want to make sure you are centered. Then staple the back edge and work your way forward. Keep it taught as you go. It does not have to be SUPER tight, just snug enough to compress the foam a little so no bunching or lose fitting occur.
Sometimes one person can stretch the cover while another staples.
I tend to not staple the hell out of a seat at first, just get the first pass done leaving space between staples to hit the second go round. This lets you get the seat on quickly enough, plus if you have an issue, you only have to remove half as many staples.
If you want to remove staples and not destroy a cover, I use a tiny flat blade screw driver and work it under the staple. You can't get at them with a plier since the material wont allow you to grab at the staple without messing up the material.
Check out this tutorial (http://ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=2513.0).
Thanks for the advice, and for the link.
I want to add height and for long runs have been strapping a chunk of foam on the seat, works brilliantly
Now I'm thinking of leaving the seat as is, add the foam and cover the damm lot. If that doesn't work then it will be time for the penknife, or a ground down screwdriver, to attack those staples.