Here were some of my original plans for how
Dumpster Diamond was supposed to look. Originally, I planned to paint the bike a light grey with black details and orange pinstripes, topped off with a gloss clear coat. I was going to try to add each modification to the bike in stages, with stage 1 just keeping the bike fairly stock.
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The tank would've probably been shaped like a diamond when viewed from above. It would also have been painted grey with black and orange details, which I still have yet to figure out.
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The number plates would've been about the same as they are now, just painted light grey with black and orange numbers. Obviously, I skipped a couple stages and went ahead and had the number plates made.
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Here's where I would've really taken this bike over the top: a pair of stealth cup holders disguised as a small V-twin engine, cradled by an equally phony extended down tube. I wanted to add an optical illusion with this fake engine to couple with the classic auditorial illusion of sticking some playing cards against the spokes to make it sound like a motorcycle. Why? Because I thought it'd be funny to watch people try and figure out why anyone would be pedaling a motorized bicycle while the "engine's" running. I still haven't figured out how to make the cup holders fully functional while looking like a believable engine, but I'm still working on it.
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After an unfortunate accident involved with a brass wire wheel and a power drill, I had to take a critical amount of time off from working on my bike, which meant I had to scale back some of my original plans for my bike. I figured I could still add some black details on top of a bare metal frame, but it didn't take long for me to realize that would still be too much work with the little time I had left before the deadline for the RRBBO. Still, I like the placement of the diamond scallops on this design better than the first design, so I'll definitely want to keep this design in mind when I redo this bike.
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When I found that the only way to finish this bike was to leave the whole bike bare metal with just a satin clear, I drew up this design. I knew I could spice up the chain guard with a vinyl decal, but sadly, I ran out of time to make a decal for the tank. Still, I at least made the tank trail past the seat pole like I originally wanted, so I'm pretty proud of that.
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One last idea I had to save for a later date: a custom "reversible" triple tree fork with truss rods. I briefly played around with the idea using some scrap conduit and one steer tube off another fork I had in my "sell/trade" pile. The idea is to use the open tops of the fork tubes to hold a pair of steer tubes, cut to line up with the top of the main steer tube, and shaped at the bottom to match the diameter of the fork tubes on either side. The three steer tubes (one real, 2 dummies) would then have a matching set of nuts and washers on the threaded portions, and 3 identical handlebar stems to mimic the triple tree forks of some 1920s board track motorcycles. Tying it all together would be some custom truss rods based off said board track motorcycles, but mounted via nuts, bolts and a little tension. I wasn't sure if I wanted the truss rods to be straight like what I usually see on those earlier motorcycles, or curved to match the slope of the bottom of the fork.
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