2010 FLHTK Black-out project finished!
#41
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#43
The taillight is a Radiantz Smoked Laydown with OEM 136 LED tail light (with bottom plate light). The turn signal bar is the HD Bullet Rear Turn Signal Bar Kit (pn 68615-04), which I had powdercoated. I went with that setup because I was worried about having room for the billet license plate frame and keeping the plate high enough that it didn't run in to the top of the rear fender tip light housing. The taillight does have white LEDs that shine down toward the plate, but I'm not sure how effective they are (there is enough light on the plate that it at least looks like you're trying to light the plate). I think there is a version of this light bar that has a downward pointing plate light built-in, and if I had to do it over I might look a little more closely at that.
#44
I'm actually running a 2009 Street Glide turn signal bar with the built-in plate light. Unfortunately, the 2010 Limited taillight assembly doesn't have a place to plug in the plate light (since it's integrated into the brake/tail light). I imagine it's just a matter of figuring out which wire to splice into, but I haven't spent the time to figure it out.
#45
Damn RockerBob!!! I got your PM and made it a point to hop on that link to check out the final rendition. Thanks for the kind mention BTW. You have LOTS to be proud of with your project. Friggin sweet!! You know what a sucker I am for details. The bike looks great at a glance, but looks fantastic when you start taking things in that add a certain balance to the ride. Going all black on the front fender keeps all the color up top and makes it look lighter even though there's all that black there. The profile of the bike with the red seat on it looks slick. Don't know if you intended for the color curvature on the seat to flow with the red/black break-line of the bike, but it sure turned out that way and flows very nicely. Very well planned, and very well integrated. So many features. I'm not always the first to be a fan of blacking out color bikes due to the difficulty in being able to balance the color & black successfully so it flows without a myriad of visual breaks. You pulled it off cleanly! Not easily done.
Hats off to you for a stellar result!
And don't fret about the CVO reference you made. In the end your bike is YOURS and being able to ride anywhere without seeing a duplicate is just great. Knowing yours is different from anybody else's is priceless.
You mentioned you'll be putting some serious miles on it? Wait until you see what happens every time you park your bike where other bikes are, and very often anywhere else. Trust me, people WILL come up to you and/or they'll just stop to give your bike the long once-over. Hell of an icebreaker. You wouldn't get that with a CVO. You'll see!
Enjoy it brother, you've definitely earned it!
Hats off to you for a stellar result!
And don't fret about the CVO reference you made. In the end your bike is YOURS and being able to ride anywhere without seeing a duplicate is just great. Knowing yours is different from anybody else's is priceless.
You mentioned you'll be putting some serious miles on it? Wait until you see what happens every time you park your bike where other bikes are, and very often anywhere else. Trust me, people WILL come up to you and/or they'll just stop to give your bike the long once-over. Hell of an icebreaker. You wouldn't get that with a CVO. You'll see!
Enjoy it brother, you've definitely earned it!
#47
You have LOTS to be proud of with your project. Friggin sweet!! You know what a sucker I am for details. The bike looks great at a glance, but looks fantastic when you start taking things in that add a certain balance to the ride. Going all black on the front fender keeps all the color up top and makes it look lighter even though there's all that black there. The profile of the bike with the red seat on it looks slick. Don't know if you intended for the color curvature on the seat to flow with the red/black break-line of the bike, but it sure turned out that way and flows very nicely.
The black on the front fender really needed to get done and it became more and more obvious as I went along. I just kept thinking "there's a single flowing line from front to back with red above and black below, and that front fender detail just doesn't make sense". It was a fair amount of hassle to tear it all back down, get the fender painted, and put it all back together (after the bike was basically done), but it was really worth it, at least to my eye.
I can't really take full credit for the seat. I had Rich of Rich's Custom Seats in Kingston do it. That guy is a true artist and master seat builder. A buddy of mine gave me the advice to not go in with a specific plan, because there's a good chance that Rich would come up with something better. So all I told him was that I wanted to somehow integrate the red, and he came up with that scheme. Then we spent about an hour looking at red material to find something that matched close enough that you could put it right next to the paint and have it work (with red it pretty much has to be a perfect match or it looks really off). He even found a tan thread for the stitching that matches the tan pinstripe line on the paint that separates the red and black. The guy did an awesome job all around.
Looking forward to having the bike ogled this summer. Thanks for all the props Butcher (and everyone else)!