Well, I got bored on a Tuesday and decided to try to do something I had been thinking about doing for a while now. Loosely inspired by the look of the grill from the 2011 Ford Raptor, I set off on a quest to de-bore myself and waste some time and money.

So, here is the standard grill look for our trucks that we all know and love so dearly



I began by taking the grill off (only 5 screws) and removing our beloved blue oval. As most of you probably know, it is removed by way of 2 small aluminum retaining nuts accessible from the back side of the grill



I flipped the grill over and traced out a template of the center hole onto some light gauge cardboard. (I used the cardboard because I feel it responds to fit testing better than paper or tin foil would, and if you need to adjust the fit you can sand the edges down, but you're free to use whatever you want.) Flip the grill back over and test fit, there is a small edge inside of the hole that I wanted the insert to sit on so that it is slightly recessed into the grill. After test fitting and adjusting my template to where I wanted it, I transferred the template over to my sheet steel. I used a piece that was 6"x24" at 1/16th" thick.



You probably noticed I do not have it alligned to the factory edge, nor do I have it centered to the horizontal, that is because I wanted to cut in retaining tabs with the piece, which can be seen in the pic below. I cut out my blank freehanding with my hand held jig saw, which was very nerve wracking, but table top crapped out on me. After cutting out the blank and filing/sanding the rough edges, I gave it a few test fits to make sure it was sitting precisely where I wanted it (on that recessed lip).




After a little more shaping and sanding, I was happy with how it looked, so now I had to decide on the cutout. I went back and forth for a while on whether to use FORD or F-350, but finally decided on FORD. So, I hit up the computer and printed out the lettering and cut out the letters using an exacto knife. I will point out that I cut the letters away from the paper and used the paper to trace out my stencil, but don't throw those cut out letters away, you'll need them to make the centers for your 'O' 'R' and 'D'. I lined it up from edges and traced out the lettering. After drilling out a few pilot holes I set to cutting them out.



Make certain to file and sand your edges as you go, obviously, so you don't cut your fingers or shred your sandpaper during the painting phase. You hopefully noticed in the above picture the 'waffle' or 'honeycomb' style mesh, that is the backing for the blank. Not only does it give the lettering centers something to hold on to, but it looks pretty sweet. You can also see clearly the retaining tabs from the cutout stage earlier. I chose to incorporate them, but if you want you can cut some strips of metal and bend them into L brackets and weld them on, builders choice I guess. So here is the shot of the combined parts, a few welds will do you good.



Follow the standard procedure for paint, i.e., sand paint sand paint sand paint. I chose to use Rust-Oleum Professional High Performance Enamel in a Semi-Gloss black, I chose to use it because it was what was sitting in my garage. I don't think a high heat application spray is necessary, for obvious reasons.



You can see in the above pick that I had to over cut the tabs by about 1/8th" for the purpose of fitting it properly on the recessed lip. And here is the finished look for the grill, it's obviously a perfect recreation of the Raptor Grill (yeah right) Pay no attention to my rusty bumper, that's next on my list.



I plan next to paint the honeycomb mesh either Ford Blood Blue, or color match it red with my body paint. I will also be back lighting it with some LED's wired in to turn on with my running lights, I will update with pics once I finish that later on today. In all, I'd say that this was a bigger pain in the *** to do than I thought it would be and probably would not have done it in hindsight (j/k, I love it). On a novice difficulty scale of 10, I would put this at a 5. I will also point out that it is necessary to cut away the emblem housing from the grill in order to fit the plug properly and drill holes to bolt the plug to the grill by means of those retaining tabs, so you will be permanently modifying your grill.

Hope you enjoyed my write up and if you're interested in doing this yourself or have any questions about the mod, let me know. I may be willing to recreate it for a price. And yes, patent pending.


Brian

 

Nice work!

 

You also gave me one more idea that i want to try i have seen some grills i am not sure what yea it was but they have the wire mesh behind the grill i was thinking about putting a whole thing behind my grill an hook it on there some how.

 

I think the second picture down with the paisley print behind the grill looks better

 

i agree that cute.

 

That's my formal work bench, Glenn, we pull that and our fancy soap out when we have guests.

 

Just giving you a hard time and I saw that your post wasn't getting any attention so I gave you a bump! LOL