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Why You Should Not Build Your Own Steel Bumper – Bumper Superstore

Why You Should Not Build Your Own Steel Bumper

 

While some people enjoy a good DIY project, there are some projects that are better left to the professionals. We all have that one friend who has used his welder and fabrication skills to do everything from making a pot-belly stove out of old truck wheels to building his own motorcycle out of angle iron and 2x4s.  The concept of building a bumper from scratch might appeal to a lot of crafty individuals who have enough raw materials, enough welding and cutting experience to be dangerous, and plenty of time on their hands.

There are plenty of reasons you shouldn't build your own bumper, and Bumper Superstore is here to give you the low-down on just a few of the big ones.  Though you might not be able to convince your friend (who probably has a pet rattlesnake), it isn't too late for you.

Time

For one thing, even if you have a lot of free time on your hands, it takes a lot of time to gather the materials, sketch out your design, measure out the dimensions you will need to fit the vehicle, and once that is all said and done, you might as well be talking about this being a full time job.  Not to mention the hours it is going to take to cut, weld, grind, and bolt your creation onto a vehicle.  You can install a kit that has been fabricated with the exact specs to your vehicle in a fraction of the time.

Quality & Assembly

The materials you are likely to have at your disposal are bound to be expensive, and if they aren't then you are probably looking at some pieces of scrap that either weigh a lot more than a bumper should or need to be cut down and altered to meet the measurements of an installed bumper.  The welds you are using to tack the pieces of metal together are probably not going to be as reliable as a piece that is forged at a factory in one uniform piece.  That means that an impact or even a bump is going to snap those seams when you least suspect.

Safety

Bumpers are built with two purposes in mind.  To protect the vehicle from impacts, and to have a little bit of give to cushion the blow of the collision.  When you build your own bumper, chances are you are going to overbuild it, without considering the give and take of the physics involved in a crash.  A bumper made from pig iron or heavy gauge steel is not going to absorb any impact.  Instead, it is going to transfer it directly to the frame of the vehicle, causing a lot more structural damage than one that was engineered for a vehicle with active standards and regulations.  Or worse yet, your bumper could cut through another vehicle, or even fragment from the impact, causing more damage and injury to anyone nearby.

Trust Bumper Superstore

For Bumpers that are safe, affordable, and of high-quality, Bumper Superstore carries a variety of bumper styles and brands. Our inventory is so large that we probably already have something in our stock that you have thought about building.  At a lower cost, unmatched quality and assembly standards, and street legal safety standards to protect yourself and others.