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Hi all,
Just thought I'd share what I did to 'clean up' my license plate mounting solution:
As the car came from the dealer the plates are just bolted on with two flimsy screws and then the typical shroud with the dealer details is attached. It's not great and I find the plate often sits funny on the bumper. Lakin brackets are great (a friend bought a set very recently) but to my DIY addled brain they're just too costly. instead I figured I'd have a crack at coming up with my own solution and making them myself.
I've only completed the rear bracket for now. The front plate will take a bit more work because I want to mould it to the curve of the bumper, which given my chosen material (acrylic) should be easily doable in a regular oven or with a heat gun. I'll add the front bracket once I'm done but it could be a while as I am waiting on a new slimline number plate
I bought the Kingpin covers because they're cheap enough and making something of equivalent quality would be fairly tricky:
8mm thick Suntuf acrylic. Thick and strong, but easy to work with and dirt cheap. More than enough material to do front and rear brackets:
Rough cut done on the drop-saw, and the corners marked for rounding:
Manually rounding the corners. It was at this point I wished I had a spindle sander as it would have given much better results. That being said I still got decent finish, it just took a bit of effort:
Counter sunk mounting points to attached the bracket to the car. I used the rubber grommet things Lakin sells (threw a few in with my friends order):
Counter sunk mounting points for the plate and the Kingpin cover to attach to the bracket. It still needed more finishing work at this point:
Test Fit. I thought about leaving the acrylic clear, but it wouldn't have given me the look I was after I kept going with my intended plan:
Sanded to help the paint stick:
After a few coats of satin black:
Ready to roll! Please excuse my office worker tan:
Mounted to the car. Cleeeeaaaaannnnnn:
Fin. Looks solid. Is solid:
From a distance. Pretty hard to capture but I guess that's the point - it looks clean!
Probably won't get anyone excited but for me it's the little things. Thanks for looking
- Matt
Just thought I'd share what I did to 'clean up' my license plate mounting solution:
As the car came from the dealer the plates are just bolted on with two flimsy screws and then the typical shroud with the dealer details is attached. It's not great and I find the plate often sits funny on the bumper. Lakin brackets are great (a friend bought a set very recently) but to my DIY addled brain they're just too costly. instead I figured I'd have a crack at coming up with my own solution and making them myself.
I've only completed the rear bracket for now. The front plate will take a bit more work because I want to mould it to the curve of the bumper, which given my chosen material (acrylic) should be easily doable in a regular oven or with a heat gun. I'll add the front bracket once I'm done but it could be a while as I am waiting on a new slimline number plate
I bought the Kingpin covers because they're cheap enough and making something of equivalent quality would be fairly tricky:
8mm thick Suntuf acrylic. Thick and strong, but easy to work with and dirt cheap. More than enough material to do front and rear brackets:
Rough cut done on the drop-saw, and the corners marked for rounding:
Manually rounding the corners. It was at this point I wished I had a spindle sander as it would have given much better results. That being said I still got decent finish, it just took a bit of effort:
Counter sunk mounting points to attached the bracket to the car. I used the rubber grommet things Lakin sells (threw a few in with my friends order):
Counter sunk mounting points for the plate and the Kingpin cover to attach to the bracket. It still needed more finishing work at this point:
Test Fit. I thought about leaving the acrylic clear, but it wouldn't have given me the look I was after I kept going with my intended plan:
Sanded to help the paint stick:
After a few coats of satin black:
Ready to roll! Please excuse my office worker tan:
Mounted to the car. Cleeeeaaaaannnnnn:
Fin. Looks solid. Is solid:
From a distance. Pretty hard to capture but I guess that's the point - it looks clean!
Probably won't get anyone excited but for me it's the little things. Thanks for looking
- Matt
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