Grr.
I hate repairs of any sort but tack repair Really suck. The items are heavy, bulky, awkward to maneuver. But expensive enough to replace that when my daughter asks me to fix something I feel obligated to at least try.
So yesterday I repaired two sets of saddle bags. The first was basically shredded on one side. I patched it front and back, reattached the d-rings and straps and banged in new gromets for lashing.
The second set of saddle bags had basically been torn in half along a seam line. No big deal, I just re-attached the bag and reinforced seaming anywhere else where it looked sketchy.
The saddle was the worst. It was a cheapo neoprene trail saddle that she'd lent to a woman, who by the looks of the thing, tied a rope to it and dragged it behind her truck. The woman reimbursed her for the cost of the saddle but DD asked me to try to restore it so she could get some more use out of it, if at all possible.
I had some tuftek on hand that seemed appropriate for patching the shredded cover and a trip to Home Depot yielded waterproof contact cement and some tubes of super glue.
The hassle was that the areas to be patched involved rather complicated curves. And so I sat down and started draping the thing, fitting it the way you would the bodice of a dress for a decidedly non-tubular female human. And it worked.
It's not beautiful, but function has been restored, and the areas of highest stress have been reinforced. If she'd had to pay me for my time of course it would have been more cost effective to just buy another cheapo neoprene trail saddle. But right now I'm long on time and short on cash and actually enjoyed the project as a learning experience. And I have a much better idea of what to charge if a paying customer ever proposes such a project.