The guy who did an amazing job making my custom front aluminum winch bumper had sort of disappeared back in about 2002, about a year after he built my bumper. All I knew was he moved to the other side of Colorado (Fruita) and changed all of his contact info. He said he went through a divorce and was trying to make a new life for himself. This week he just called me (fortunately my phone number is the same) to say someone wants a bumper like mine. He's coming to my house to borrow my 4Runner bumper for a couple weeks to make a jig so he can start stocking it as a product! It only took 9 years to get to this point. His very minimal website is www.denver-offroad.com . After I meet with him this week, we should update his contact info (or lack thereof) on my 4x4Wire article about my 4Runner bumper.

One nice thing is that he offered me a discount toward building a prototype front aluminum bumper on my 2007 Tacoma. :-) I'll have to seriously consider that. I see that something like a heavy steel Shrockworks bumper can be $1300 or so with shipping. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" /> The price would probably be comparable.

I'm just excited to pass on this info. I'll keep you all informed about what happens.

Jeff, I just looked up your article, and your bumper is GREAT!

If the fella wants to make one for an FJ60... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

How about one for a JK???

Here's a status update...

He borrowed my bumper and frame brackets for a few weeks. He built some jigs so he can confidently reproduce it, plus built most of the next one for a test-fit, plus at least portions of the next few bumpers. Before he returned my bumper to me, he cleaned it up and had it powder coated. Wow! I didn't realize its appearance would be so improved with the powder coating and clear coat. I'll be afraid to set tools and stuff on it now because it looks so nice. We had agreed on silver, which does match my silver vehicle pretty closely.

Before he borrowed the bumper, I drilled and cut new holes for standard "oval" semi truck LED lights for new turn signals since I was tired of the dim '84 Toyota turn signals. Today I got the new LED turn signals mounted (flange mount and recessed). Those look awesome too. I'm very surprised the stock turn signal flasher works fine with these LED's. I convinced Layne to go with a nice LED light on his production bumper, and he found some nice surface mount ones that minimize his labor. I'll have to take some pics of mine to share with you guys soon. No one will believe me anymore that my bumper is over 9 years old since it looks so beautiful now.

He said he needs to figure out the options and prices for publication, which should be within a couple weeks. I told him I'd update my old article and include the new prices. Actually I think I should update quite a bit of my article.

I did ask him if he's interested in building bumpers for other vehicles. He prefers larger bumpers since larger ones show a bigger difference in weight between steel and aluminum. He's particularly interested in making bumpers for models that don't have other possibilities (like ARB). He did say that he won't enter the Jeep market because it's so saturated with aftermarket suppliers that it drives the prices way down. His starting price for materials and tooling is way above that for steel parts.

No progress yet on anything with the Tacoma. Just the 4Runner so far.

Actually, a new article with a link back to the original would be better.

The jeep market is saturated with steel bumpers; not aluminum ones. I do understand where he is coming from..

I'm digging up this thread from 4 years ago because the bumper builder finally got a round Tuit! I now have a new really awesome aluminum winch bumper on my 2007 Tacoma. Some of it is constructed from 3/8" aluminum, some of it from 5/16" aluminum, and the frame bracket is steel. As expected, he did a really awesome job with this. I chose to have it powder coated basically color matched to the Tacoma. So now I'm stylin'. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'm just about to go on vacation, but here's a teaser pic for now (see attachment).

Looks nice...

Sweet. What did she weigh? How much if you don't mind me asking. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

The most impressive part of the weight stats is that the main bumper channel (minus the lower skirt and the steel brackets to the frame) is only 63.4 pounds despite awesomely thick and strong appearance of the aluminum. The stack-of-dimes meaty welds look super cool. I know this thing is very well made and dang strong. Then you add the bolt-on aluminum lower skirt, which is still only another 12 pounds and still looks strong. Then the steel brackets to the frame is where he unnecessarily overbuilt it with thick steel and added weight back into the whole thing. The total weight of the steel frame brackets and associated bolts is another 41.2 pounds. So the total weight works out to 116.6 lbs, which is still good compared to the 135-140 lbs or so for a comparable steel bumper from Shrockworks or other similar aftermarket winch bumper. It just bugs me that it could be approaching 100 lbs if he was more careful with his overbuilding the steel portion of it.

He had the body/frame clearance a bit too close to start with so we were hearing thumping on bumps, but that's been resolved now.

Price was about the same as what I would have paid for a Shrockworks bumper, which would have been the alternative to this bumper for us.