Decepticon Badges for UK Ford Fusion

thingiverse

This started as a bit of fun that ended up not being any fun at all! It began with me noticing that the grille badge on my car was showing its age. The laquer (actually clear vinyl) covering the Ford emblem had lifted from the badge, and it just looked grotty (see picture 3). What I should have done is to either replace the badge completely (ridiculously expensive), or find a way to re-lacquer it. But I wanted to add just a soupçon of levity to my otherwise boring vehicle. I'd previously seen the nifty little decepticon badge designed by klhpip (Thing number 3155671), and I thought it would be good fun to print one for my own jalopy. I duly printed it out - making a point of stopping at the appropriate time to change filament so that I didn't have to paint it - and was pleased with how it turned out (see blue badge in my 5th picture). But, when I came to fit it to my car, it turned out to be rather smaller than the existing badges, and I couldn't use it. This meant I now had to draw up my own badge design. But it was still fun, so I took my trusty caliper out to my car, and noted the various dimensions. I followed with a bit of SketchUp work, and drew what I considered to be an acceptable design. I printed out two of the little blighters (once again stopping to change filament) and, after waiting in vain for a nice dry day, I put on my coat, and set about removing the existing badges from the car. It was at this point I found a flaw in my cunning plan: The rear badge wasn't too complicated, except that it had three pins on it that my flat design hadn't got. I could sort that with some threaded rod, and some nuts and washers. But the front badge was another matter entirely; it was just a stamped shell that fitted over a suitably shaped boss moulded into the grille (see pic 7 - which isn't my grille, but has an identical badge moulding). This meant that my lovely flat badge wasn't going to fit without some sort of adaptor. So I took a load of new measurements, and over the next week I printed and rejected innumerable badge holders, all designed to fit over the existing moulding. Not one of them fitted! Day after day I would trot out to my car with yet another redesign, only to return in disappointment. Finally I decided I'd had enough, and decided to take drastic action. I took the grille off the car (in the pouring rain, naturally) and set about it with a stepper drill, a scroll saw, and a Dremel type tool fitted with a sanding sleeve. I don't mess about when I've made my mind up! Using that little lot, I removed the central part of the badge mount from the grille, along with the four horizontal wings sticking out on either side. This left me with a rectangular hole with two flat areas each side. I could now screw through these into the back of my printed badge. Finally! I refitted the grille (in the pouring rain, naturally), and stood back to admire my handiwork (at which point it immediately stopped raining for the first time). There's also a tale to the rear badge, but I figure I've already gone way past "TL;DR" and into "FFS" territory! Anyway, it's all done now, so I can sit back and wait for the lovely little local schoolkids to spot it, and watch them destroy my grille to steal it! _________________________ Update: I decided that the red and blue were a bit too "in yer face". So I substituted a black version. Much better IMO.