I’m making my bumpers from wood, and was concerned abotu sag over time caused by the ion knob, because it’s so heavy, so I came up with a lightweight alternate.
Use a 1 1/2 inch pvc pipe, drill a hole at the top and bottom of it, use silicon glue, and wrap some wound weed whacker line around it! anchor both ends in those holes, paint it first black, and then light coated silver over the top, and cap with a metal washer. Then use a long bolt to anchor it to the bumper. This should be about half as heavy (or less) then that heavy washer bumper knob.
To make it even lighter, use a 1 1/4 inch dowel on the bumper, and hot melt glue the assembled boltless knob to the bumper. Then just glue a nut over the hole in the washer.
The should reduce the weight of the ion knob about 90% or more.
that’s what i did for my first one, i say go for it, but if you would like to give it more of a realistic look to it, tak some wire and wrap it around it.
I have aluminum wire from inside a cable.. that’s lightweight, and might work as well, without adding too much additional weight. I also found you need 1 1/4 inch PVC, and buy 1 3/4" cap.. if you heat and flatten th eend of it with a heat gun, you can screw it to the bumper, and then wrap some duct tape or electrical tape around it (Just a wind or two), and then you have an easily removable ion knob for storage!
Why not do the same thing but instead of weed-eater line, use black o-rings. Paint the whole thing silver and over time the paint will flake off giving a weathered look. O-rings may be a bit more expensive but to me they would look a bit cleaner.
If you could find the O rings in the right size, that would be a good alternative, but I think ours came out great. I hit them first with primer, then used gloss black, and then lightly fleck dusted them with silver… hre’s a wip shot (I still need to pick up the proper end washer and nut, but the stand ins well show you how “metal” they actually look.
I might hit them with another silver dust coat, and when I’m happy with them, I’ll add a sealer coat of future floor wax.. it’s super shiny, and will help sell the “metal” appearance.
i did something similar for mine. i used a wooden dowel and wrapped it with some real fat sloder, capped it off with a nice washer on top. just out of couriosty, why did you paint the knobs black?
You kinda want some weathering or corrosion between the “ribs”, so the easiest way to achieve that look, was to paint it gloss black first, and then stand a extra foot or so away, and do a light “dust coat” of the silver over the top of that. The silver mainly his the top of the ribs that way, and the black looks like it’s between them.
(Plus I wanted a number of paint coats on this to make it a bit more durable.)
There are two coats of primer, one of gloss black, and then the dusting of silver. Odds are, I’ll do another silver dust coat, to make it stand out a bit more, and then once that’s dry, do a sealer coat of future floor wax. Its VERY glossy, and will help the simulated metal effect.
Another suggestions is to get some 1.5" flexible pipe (the kind used for ponds) then cut a small section of it off, cap it with a washer then spray it silver.
