The video kind of explains it all for this project, but it would have been very helpful to have all of the measurements and instructions laid out beforehand, so here they are! 1. Cut 5" of 2x2 square tubing. For deeper bumpers you might have to extend this length. 2. Place a 5/8" hole about a quarter of an inch away from the edge of your tubing: the center of the hole will be 9/16" from the cut edge and one inch in from your rounded edge of the square tubing. It would have been convenient to tap one of the holes so that your hardware would tighten it against your hitch once you installed it. The fit up was still fairly tight without tapping the hole though. 3. Find matching hardware. We did a 4" long partially threaded 5/8 11 bolt with a matching nut and a locking washer. It seems to work great! 4. Cut out any DXF file of your choosing. There are thousands on the internet, so find one that floats your boat! 5. Simple hitch covers that have only one paint color can now go straight to welding and then to painting. Hitch covers that have multiple layers and different colors can proceed one of two ways: paint first then weld, or weld first then paint. We tried both and found them to be equally time consuming. If I had to choose one approach, I would choose to lay a solid weld down to adhere the two layers of metal and then paint them. With more complex designs like the moose antlers though, we opted to paint them first and then do touch ups on the heat affected zones of the paint, because it would have taken ten years to tape around all of the intricacies of the antlers. 6. Clear coat the entire thing and then you're ready to install it! If you have any more questions let me know in the comments section below!
