After I purchased my LeatherLyke saddlebags I thought it would look great if I could get the boot box (yeah, yeah, "trunk") to match... the solution I found is below!

Double Headed Stud Rivets

What I did is go to a leather store and purchased "double headed rivet studs". These are studs which have a female part and a male part. Each has a stud head (so they look the same from either side), and the posts click/lock together. I then drilled out where I wanted the studs to go in the boot box and simply snapped the studs together through the drill holes. I used 5mm (depth) studs, and did not impact them. I found that if I tried to take larger studs and impact them, well, they looked a lot like they had been hit with a hammer. The studs snap together so well anyway that they are difficult to remove without a screwdriver, and I have washed the box very thoroughly with a hose and have not found any water leaks through. 

Stud Hole Template

I think this method would be great for a good many surfaces to match them with the Shadow's classic style. I would recommend you measure the thickness of the material you wish to stud and get studs of that depth, as I do not see how one could impact them and keep them in "showroom" condition. They do sell an impact tool (which has an indentation the same shape as the rivet head), but I found this didn't help me. What I find did help was to create a template to accurately place the rivets (drill holes). What I did was take a small piece of MDF and drill a small hole at the top, I then drilled two large holes directly either side of this hole exactly 2cm out (the distance I wanted my studs apart). I then drilled a pin hole below the middle top hole, the distance I wanted my stud (centers) from the edge. I then again drilled two larger holes exactly 2cm either side of this pin hole.

What I then did was put a small screw in the center top hole, and used the screw's head to "lock" or hook onto the edge of the item I was studding. This allows you to very easily and accurately position all the studs the same distance from the edge. I used a screw with a deep tubular head, this way I had enough sticking out to catch on the edge, but not so much as to cause problems on edges that were only indentations in plastic (where the longer threaded area of the screw would have prevented me from sitting the template flat).

Once you have your template done up you can run along the edge marking your drill holes with a stout needle. Just hook the screw over the edge, and line up the edge in both of the "windows" either side. Because the windows are larger, you can even follow curved surfaces very accurately. Just line up the edge so that equal amounts show in each window, and the line of rivets will be perfect!

My luggage options are now shown below! (Wait for the image to load to see the full animation!) You can see more shots of the studded boot box in the My Shadow section.

@ Sean Flanagan, 2004. All rights reserved.