Here is a link to STan94's post: Custom modifications: Tips & Resources you can read my response related to his upcoming build.
Now let's talk about building bikes.
If you take a look at my profile you will see I have made a few styles of bikes. Bikes seem like really easy builds but in fact they can be quite challenging. Just ask our awesome community member ErikBarton when he was working on his chopper build: CHOPPER BUILD-OFF. Wild Hog.
Let's go over some of the reasons why bikes are challenging builds.ErikBarton wrote:It was a real long night and the new coffee machine got a real work out.
- Scale
- Centering
- Wheels
- Figures
- Existing frames
Centering: This is probably one of the most challenging points when you are building a bike from scratch. I have found myself more than a few times trying to figure out how to center a wheel to the bike frame I have built. I tend to use a lot of those peg and pole parts for the wheels. Which work very well . By using those parts I have to find clever ways to get from the pegs and poles to prongs. This is surprisingly difficult to do.
Examples:
You can see that the wheel is connected to the frame by a 1x1 peg connector. Seems simple enough. But if you look closely you will notice that the 1x1 is centered on the frame. This is where the most important piece comes into play. The 1 prong 2x2. This piece has one prong centered on a 2 prong block. The advantage with this block is that you can center a 1x1. The disadvantage is that the 1x1 is "floating" there is nothing keeping it from sliding side to side.
In the examples above you can see another very useful piece for building bikes. I'm not entirely sure what the official name of it is but I'll call it a double angle peg. In both pictures this part is used in the front of the bike. Quite often the width of the frame doesn't match the width of the poles coming from the wheel. These double angle pieces can be used to control the width and help to center your wheel. You can control the width simply by turning the angles away or towards each other.
It happens to me very often when working on these builds that things don't exactly fit together.
More than a few times I've had space that was too small for a block but too large to click together properly.
The rear wheel in the picture above looks like it fits nicely between the two pieces of the frame, but in fact, the axle in the wheel is just a tad too small and doesn't fully click into one side. It's kind of just floating inside of the under prong.
The front of this bike is also another great example of using those double angle pegs to control the width from the wheel to connect to the frame. And it looks COOL!
Wheels: So whats so difficult about wheels? Well, in the MB world the most common wheels are from vehicles and have only one connection socket. The other side of the wheel is a mag. Unfortunately this makes it difficult for making bikes. Most bike wheels are connected with a fork. Its hard to connect a fork if your wheel has only one connector socket. Even if you manage to find a wheel that you can connect on both sides there are no ready made axels. Improvising an axle is easy when using pegs and poles but as mentioned above the challenge then becomes going from peg and pole to block.
Let's look at some ways that MB sets center wheels.
Call of Duty: STRIKE FIGHTER - Step 11
You can see here that they have a very custom piece for wheel centering. If you have this set then you could probably use that piece for your front wheel.
Call of Duty: GHOSTS TACTICAL HELICOPTER - step 49-51
Again the centering uses a pieces that in my experience is not very common. If you have this set you may be able to use the back wheel of the set for the front wheel of your bike.
Figures: I've run into a few challenges with getting the figure on the bike. The first is, the figures do not spread their legs very wide. So you will need to make the part where our figure sits as narrow as possible. Try to aim for a 1x1 as your figures seat.
Call of Duty: MOTORBIKE BREAKOUT - Step 1Example:
You will notice that the bike seat is smaller than a 1x1
Halo: UNSC SIEGE BIKE - Step 7
The seat for the figure on this bike is a 1x1
The second challenge only presents itself when making bikes where the figure lies down. Figures can not bend at the waste. If you look at the example below you will notice that the figure is hovering over the bike, where in fact he should be resting on it.
When building a bike where the figure is lying down it’s important to remember to make it long enough for the figure.
Some figures are surprisingly long. Make sure to build around your figure.
Existing frames: The MB world has a few existing frames for bikes. These frames are usually made of one of two large pieces. These pieces make it difficult to create custom bikes in my opinion.
Jason-101 does a great job at using an existing MB frame to create a custom chopper.
However you will notice that Jason-101 had to modify the rear of the bike to accommodate for the larger wheel.
He is also using a single socket wheel, so I imagine he also had to make some permanent modifications to the frame.
This is a good example of the limitations of the existing bike frames MB has to offer.
In the end we are only limited by our imaginations. And depending on what you want to accomplish an existing frame might be just the thing you need.
Conclusion:
- Scale
- Use small pieces.
- Centering
- 1 prong 2x2.
- Pegs and poles for connecting wheels
- Double angle for adjusting width
- Wheels
- Connector socket on two sides
- Keep connectors as close to the wheel as possible
- Figures
- Keep seats small 1x1
- Build frame around the figure
- Existing frames
- Useful but limited
