BO15 Dumpster Diamond (Formerly "First Ever Build Off with a Postwar Hawthorne")

[Bike from the Dead]

I like those schemes.
What about "Hawtracker"?

Thanks. I'm going to keep thinking up build names, but that's a good idea.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Well, today didn't go as planned. I got to my dad's shop earlier this afternoon, and I finally saw how the chain guard and forks that I clear coated earlier this week turned out. They came out pretty great, but I'll want to lightly sand some spots where some dust settled (any idea what grit I should use?). The good side of the chain guard was wire brushed to look nice and shiny, but I left the back side sandblasted, which makes it almost look like a dull silver metallic.

I only wire brushed the fins and outer sides on the forks, since I plan to leave those parts bare metal, and the rest is just sandblasted, as the rest of the forks will be primed and painted.

I had started sandblasting and wire brushing some other parts, when things suddenly went south on me. As I was using my wire brush wheel on one of my number plates, the wire wheel caught on the edge and sped off, gashing a good two inches on my left wrist. I won't share the picture I took of the aftermath, but it was enough to make me jog to the ambulance station just down the street from my dad's shop, where they put some gauze on it and told me what to do to let it cure. I decided to just call it a day and go home. I'm going to need to tend to this wound for the next 3 days, and while it's not bad enough to put me completely out of commission in that time, it'll just be easier to stay home and let things heal than to try to make things work at my dad's shop 40 minutes away. My dad's shop is still under construction, which means there's no working bathroom with soap and water yet, and that's something I'm going to need every few hours to help my wrist heal.

In the meantime, I guess I could get all my decals ready for printing, and catch up on everyone else's builds.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Finally decided on a name for my bike, "Dumpster Diamond."

Why "Dumpster Diamond?"

Well, sometime back in December of last year, I was trying to find someone who could straighten my frame out, in the hopes that it'd increase the value of the bike. Well, one of the places I stopped by was a bike shop that had a job opening I wanted to apply for. Bear in mind, this bike shop typically works with high-end carbon fiber and aluminum bikes, so once I walked in and saw their inventory, I knew the odds of them being able to help was unlikely. But, I was already here to ask about a job, so I figured I'd ask if they could help with my bike. Well, once the guy who came out to look at my bike saw my bike, the first thing out of his mouth was something like, "Did you get this out of a dumpster?"

That was was first time, but not the last time, that someone called this Hawthorne junk. Not only did each instance kind of rub me the wrong way, but it motivated me to prove that even a bent-up "dumpster bike" could turn into something beautiful. That, and the fact that I found an actual diamond painted on the frame as I was stripping paint, led me to call my bike "Dumpster Diamond.

 

[nosferatu1381]

Well, darn. Looks like I won't be doing an OA bath today after all. It apparently rained last night, and it's bound to rain again later today. Looks like I'll be working on something else today.

what are bathing? 180 degrees and 2ph i know a little about that chemistry. it is really intended for painted things. You are better off with oven cleaner if you are working on chrome or nickel.

I

 

[Bike from the Dead]

what are bathing? 180 degrees and 2ph i know a little about that chemistry. it is really intended for painted things. You are better off with oven cleaner if you are working on chrome or nickel.View attachment 133869View attachment 133870I

Was that your post I saw on The CABE a while back? Here's the post I made on The CABE a while ago about which bike or bikes on which I want to do an OA bath. https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/oxalic-acid-bath-help.169308/#post-1153645

 

[nosferatu1381]

Was that your post I saw on The CABE a while back? Here's the post I made on The CABE a while ago about which bike or bikes on which I want to do an OA bath. https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/oxalic-acid-bath-help.169308/#post-1153645

If it was the extremely detailed one with peer reviewed paper bibliography section it was mine

 

[kingfish254]

Hope your wrist heels up. That rotating machinery can yank a knot in metal (and flesh) is a millisecond. Just clear coat over any blood that got on the part.
Great build name!

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Hope your wrist heels up. That rotating machinery can yank a knot in metal (and flesh) is a millisecond. Just clear coat over any blood that got on the part.
Great build name!

Thanks Kingfish. It's definitely healing up, but it's still pretty tender right now. Hopefully, I'll be working on the bike again by tomorrow, but we'll see. I would have done that clear coat idea, but I managed to avoid bleeding all over my bike parts.

Thanks!

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Making good progress on my decals. I updated my username icon, and I scanned my number plates and chain guard into Adobe Illustrator to make my decals at the right size.

Old on the left, new on the right.

I used Rosewood ST as my font because of the diamonds in the font.

On my chain guard, I had played around with using a recycling symbol to go with the "dumpster" part of "Dumpster Diamond," but I'm not really sold on it.

I'm personally digging this design.

I've about got all my decals ready for print, but what do you guys think? Is there anything I should change?

 

[Psychographic]

I think the bottom chainguard design looks cleaner and sleeker. I also like the older skull design better.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Second chain guard is more pleasing

 

[Bike from the Dead]

I think the bottom chainguard design looks cleaner and sleeker. I also like the older skull design better.

Great, thanks! Any reason(s) why you like the older skull better than the new one?

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Second chain guard is more pleasing

Thanks!

 

[Psychographic]

Great, thanks! Any reason(s) why you like the older skull better than the new one?

The jaw looks better to me, a bit more aggressive looking. The ear canal looks more proportionate to the skull too.

I always thought your avatar was a neat design, but never noticed the eyes were a bicycle. I love subtle things like that, that are so obvious when you finally realize what they are.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

The jaw looks better to me, a bit more aggressive looking. The ear canal looks more proportionate to the skull too.

I always thought your avatar was a neat design, but never noticed the eyes were a bicycle. I love subtle things like that, that are so obvious when you finally realize what they are.

Yeah, I get what you're saying about the aggressive jaw line and ear canal, but I changed the jaw line mainly so I could make the word "DEAD" about as big as "BIKE," and the ear canal just looked too big to me. If there wasn't an element of typography involved, then yeah, the older design would work better, but I want the words embedded in the illustration to be fairly easy to read.

Glad you noticed that little detail! That's my favorite bit about my avatar design.

 

[kingfish254]

I like the bottom guard design better.
I'm not sure if the subtle differences in the two skulls are noticeable once on the guard.

 

[toro1978]

I must go with the flow. (The bigger jaw and skull work better for me, and the cleaner chainring too). The size of the lettering is important, I know you want it as big as you can fit on the chainring, but smaller would make the paint lines pop and the text might be more easily readable because of more background around it.
Also the "green point" is another recycling symbol (but for plastic):

 

[Bike from the Dead]

I like the bottom guard design better.
I'm not sure if the subtle differences in the two skulls are noticeable once on the guard.

Thanks. I actually just had one of the decals mocked up earlier, and the detail is fairly clear.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

I must go with the flow. (The bigger jaw and skull work better for me, and the cleaner chainring too). The size of the lettering is important, I know you want it as big as you can fit on the chainring, but smaller would make the paint lines pop and the text might be more easily readable because of more background around it.
Also the "green point" is another recycling symbol (but for plastic):
View attachment 134339

Thanks!

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Okay, given that my wrist still hasn't fully healed yet, and I've only got 11 days left to finish my bike, it looks like I'm going to have to scale back some of my ideas again if I'm ever going to get this bike done in time.