So this thing needs a headbadge. I would love to have something like one of these, but I'm trying to keep this low-budget (or at least limit what parts I put money into) and these go for like minimum 40 bucks each on Fleabay.
And maybe I'm cheap, but it offends my sensibilities to spend 20 bucks on a sticker like one of these. And if I did, I'd want to put it on a thin piece of metal so it would look like a raised badge and not a sticker.
But the one on the left is simple enough that just maybe I could fake something close, in the spirit of Rat Rodding and doing it yourself and for cheap and using what you have around. However, it seemed to be a pretty daunting task to get something to come out looking decent. I took the suggestion from
@RustyGold up above and checked out Lowes for roof flashing. Turns out you can buy 4 inch square pieces for less than 50 cents. So I bought a few and gave it the old college try...
My first attempt, just playing around with it, made it pretty clear that it's very difficult to get a good clean rounded cut, even if I traced it out first.
So I figured maybe I could get something with straight edges to look good. Sure enough, I can cut a rectangle to look much more straight and even than an oval. And I should have taken pics of the process, but it kinda fell together really quick and I didn't think to document it.
Anyway, I cut a 2" by 3.5" rectangle, curled it around a small piece of tubing to get the right curve, and laid out a very rough plan:
I had to tape it to my kids' wiffle-ball bat to support it while I worked on it. I spray-bombed a black rectangle in the center to show through the cut-out MURRAY letters. Then I used the Cricut to cut the white rectangle with the letters removed and the red and blue rectangles. From there it was just a matter of lining it all up. I'm actually kind of stoked about how it came out.
For now it's just hanging on the head tube with blue tape. I'm going to mount it with double-sided 3M outdoor tape, but I want to seal it with some kind of clear sheet first. I was thinking Crystal Clear Gorilla Tape, as I have used it on something like this before and it seemed to work well. (but I have to remember where the heck I put the roll...) Anybody have other suggestions for laminating-type film or tape?
Edit: no go on the Gorilla Tape, or at least the roll I have here. It's only an inch and a half wide, and I need something at least two inches. Still looking for suggestions. And yes, I cleaned up the measuring marks between the white and the blue.