718 ABS License Plate Mounts

[blueline]

I have a 718 set and a 911 set and can attest to all that they are beyond great! They are awesome.

[Tom]

In the spirit of those big corporations that do a whole promotional campaign when they get a new multi-million dollar production robot, here is my latest license plate mount production tool. It's weirdly satisfying.....

[blueline]

In the spirit of those big corporations that do a whole promotional campaign when they get a new multi-million dollar production robot, here is my latest license plate mount production tool. It's weirdly satisfying.....

Brilliant!

[Bill in Bama]

Pretty neat! It reminds me a little of my work on camping equipment when you use those punches, I still have my set somewhere that I used to work on heavy backpack material(and leather too, of course) but I just eyeballed it without the benefit of a 3D printed alignment template. Hey, you're not employing slave labor in your production are you?

[xcursion]

Tom, I will like to order a set as well. Email sent. Thanks again.

[Tom]

I think we've hit the point of singularity with the new 3D printer technology.

I originally 3D printed all my license plate mounts, and they worked great, but they looked like home-made 3D printed parts, had a high failure rate when printing, and took hours to print. I turned to CNC machining to get a professional look and, importantly, to speed up production. The downside of CNC was cost, which started out high, but manageable. That price has unfortunately more than doubled since the first batch and I didn't want to just keep raising the price to the point where no one wants them (and I wanted to keep production here in the US).

So.... I've been exploring options and think I've come full circle back. FDM printers (the most common) have made some quantum leaps in technology lately, and I'm honing in on a process that can match or exceed the appearance and speed of the CNC process, at a fraction of the cost. See the prototype below. This is done in ASA plastic, which is a close cousin to ABS, but holds up better to both UV exposure and heat. Most of the magic is in the new Bambu Lab X1C printer. Not sure these pictures do it justice, but it looks like a factory-made part that most people would never guess came off a printer. I'll keep honing the process, but I'm fairly sure I'll be moving to mounts like these in the near future.

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[Larry C]

They look very well made

[Wixer102]

Hello Tom - I’d like to order a set for my Golf R. Are there any available at the moment or are you working on new batch / production process?

Thanks!

[Tom]

Hi, yes they are available. I think I was replying to your email right around the time you were posting this. See my email and we can take it from there. Thanks!

[Tom]

Just FYI, I've updated the mounts again -- in my never-ending effort to keep quality up and costs down. When I first started making these, they were 3D printed in ABS plastic, but 3D printing at the time proved to be too slow and unreliable to keep up with demand, so we've been having the mounts CNC'd for the last few years. But since that was getting so expensive, we recently invested in some of the newer 3D printing technology and are happy to report we'll now be making the mounts 'in-house' again. No changes in the design, they still work exactly the same -- this is motivated purely to keep quality up and costs down. That said, I'm very please with the way these look and work! Best part is I can avoid a price hike this way!

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