Custom Beetle Rear Bumper

[mosiac]

story so far. . . . Got given an old Blackfoot by my younger brother that had good chassis and wheels, no body or electrics and a lot of minor stuff missing. Decided to do it MB style as that is what I had back in the day. Started hunting for bits and pieces and decided as I want my son to have it in a couple of years to sacrifice authenticity for practicality so got a list of parts I needed or wanted and started hitting LHS and not so LHS, local auction site etc. Finally got all the bits I wanted except a rear bumper (and now new gearbox internals but thats another tale) so got onto one of the machines at work and made this...... still got to polish it up and bend it to suit but pretty happy with how it came out.

[Blacque Jacque]

Hey, that's real nice.

I'm sure you could sell a few of those if you made more, I'd certainly buy one.

[Mad Ax]

How cool izzat! Wow

[mosiac]

Cheers for the positive comments, I have another couple of designs I've done up on CAD but not machined including a VW logo and various 'cooling vent/slots' instead of the 'bug off' Hadn't thought of making them but it would be quite easy to knock out 15-20 if the demand was there, this one is made out of stainless but I think alloy would be better from a weight point of view.

[mosiac]

Update.....

bent it to shape and gave it a bit of a buff up, got one hole drilled and the battery went flat but got far enough that I can dummy fit it at least....

[Blacque Jacque]

WOW!! It looks even better now, get ready for a flood of requests.

On that note - can you do custom text ?

[mosiac]

Hi Blaque Jaque,

I can do (almost) anything in the centre where it says 'bug off' down to approx 1mm 'bridges'' space is the only constraint as it only measures 55mm wide by 75mm high some of the other designs I played with included a VW logo, smiley face, MB and various vent type styles. I think if there is a demand for these I will do a small run but I want to tweak the shape in a couple of places to provide more strength before I offer it out to TC members. What did you have in mind for custom text as I can play with the design on the computer without cutting anything.

[Lonestar]

Update.....

bent it to shape and gave it a bit of a buff up, got one hole drilled and the battery went flat but got far enough that I can dummy fit it at least....

Superb job - let me know if you plan on making some more... waiting in line behind Blacque Jacque (Hi Russ )...

On another note - first time I see a fan on a mabuchi, you must be driving this thing pretty hard!

[mosiac]

All done. . . . .

Took a bit of work to mark the second hole so that it lined up but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

[mosiac]

Any takers????

Have given it a good thrashing and no harm done so mission accomplished on durability, next step is to find out how many are wanted by other Beetle owners out there, if there is enough demand I will do a small run. To make it easier to ship I propose to leave it flat which will require bending by the buyer and drilling of holes to install (prototype took about 2 hours to fit) . If there is a majority opposed to this I will bend and drill them but it will cost more to cover my time and added packaging. I can do custom text or logo's but keep it small and simple. I don't have a price as yet but should have an idea this week once I get some prices on the sheet metal. Reply here or PM me if you are keen.

Cheers

Hamish

[mongoose1983]

I thought your custom bumper looks good! I'm working on a Beetle nowadays. I was wondering if you have the standard motor mount pieces here or is it something a little fancier?

[mosiac]

I thought your custom bumper looks good! I'm working on a Beetle nowadays. I was wondering if you have the standard motor mount pieces here or is it something a little fancier?

Motor mount is standard but "dust cover" on other side is a custom work in progress, not quite a perfect colour match but close to the red of the chassis. It is just a 12mm thick acrylic circle with 2 countersunk holes but I am going to "dome" it into a nicer shape and polish it up when I pull gear box down in near future.

[Crash Cramer]

That is a nice looking upgrade. I don't know if I will have enough room for mine, but I like your idea of sending it flat to save costs. If you could possibly use a marker you could help some of us hackers bend it nicely without pulling all of the hair out of our head. Lastly, if you only had 15 people interested, do you have a price ball park??? Thanks and I think I would be after one that has the Monster Beetle script in the back of it instead of the Bug Off.

[mosiac]

That is a nice looking upgrade. I don't know if I will have enough room for mine, but I like your idea of sending it flat to save costs. If you could possibly use a marker you could help some of us hackers bend it nicely without pulling all of the hair out of our head. Lastly, if you only had 15 people interested, do you have a price ball park??? Thanks and I think I would be after one that has the Monster Beetle script in the back of it instead of the Bug Off.

Done a bit of home work and I should be able to do them for $20-25 NZ (approx 9-12 pounds or 18-23 US$) plus shipping as a flat sheet and I have changed cad to cut out more so it should be fairly simple to bend and fit. For fully bent I would probably be looking for $50-60 NZ (20-24 pounds or 40-50 US$) plus shipping. Of course that is based on enough interest to justify buying a sheet of Ally. All I did to bend though was cut a bit of wood to 20mm (width of gear box) and take to it with a BFH till it was shape I wanted then hacksaw and drill to fit, approx 2 hours total. As for shipping I have no idea as to cost but flat it would be about 8x 10 photo size I would guess. Custom script and text is kind of tricky in that it is not till it is finished that you know for sure it has worked so I would only do up to 4 letters per line as standard, more then that I could not guarantee results and there would be a good chance of warpage when fitted.

Cheers

Hamish

[mosiac]

OK,

Had only one request so far so if there are any others out there who want one of these let me know.

Cheers

Hamish