Thread: Post your custom ideas.

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I love to fabricate my own parts. New to the street rod world, I have lots of money saving ideas. Recently made a license plate bucket from a cake pan. Wal Mart $2.99 Just had to shortin it a bit. I'm now making tail light buckets from hard plastic cups to be glassed in. I have a long way to go, needs headlights, all interior ect.
Is there anyone else here that does the same and has some really cool and unique money saving ideas? I'd be interested in hearing them.

Sounds like you're the reincarnation of some old-time rodder, maybe the guy who first used a wheelbarrow to make a relieved firewall. Keep thinking, keep building.

I guess I probably sound "trashy", making parts from unlikely sources. Trust me, I would never have my ride looking trashy. Everythig I do is, and looks professional when completed. I paint Harleys on the side and never send one out without a customer satisfied 110%. For instant, a friend wanted a custrom cracked paint look for his 2002 HD. Came down to painting it with that antique crackle paint from Lowes. blue over black. I then layed down 22 coats of clear, sanding bewtween with a final buff. A guy at the Harley shop told the owner it's one of the best customs he's seen and estimated the job at 5k. Could not beleive it only cost approx. $200.00. The bike took first at show. I just can't afford to buy high dollar parts, and have learned that I can fab one for a 1/4 of the cost. Plus I enjoy doing it. Of course most things you just can't get around buying.

Nothing "trashy" about it. This hobby is driven by people who work with their hands, and the creative people will always stand out from the crowd.

Hotrodding has always been about making something from nothing. Don't let people drag you down. If you like it chances are someone else will too.

I think it's great certain builders can get $250k for a cool car, or that some cars are selling for $3,000,000. The other side of that though is people with that kind of cash need people like us to give them something to spend their money on... Keep up the good work.

Not at all....
My wife always freaks when I spend time in the kitchen supply stores looking at the aluminum pots and pans for possible air cleaner housings.
Jeff

Originally posted by R Pope
Sounds like you're the reincarnation of some old-time rodder, maybe the guy who first used a wheelbarrow to make a relieved firewall. Keep thinking, keep building.

Well a few months ago we had some fun when I remembered cutting off the bottom of beer cans and bolting them into the bell ends of cone headers with 1/4" holes drilled in the aluminum just to lower the sound level. Then again I wish I had a coupe with an open hole in the top just so I could use a green plexiglass insert instead of welding in a metal top. Dave Severson let me down softly saying that has been tried but was a sort of fad that is past it's day. Hey I got my hands full as it is with the minimum roadster, supposedly lowest cost and simplest, but still a challenge for me, but if I had a Model A coupe I'd do the green plastic roof bit.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder