Building Recovery Lugs (Bumper?)

As I mentioned a couple of weeks back on the Jeep Talk Call In Show, I've been slowly fabricobbling some recovery lugs together. I thought maybe you guys would wanna see my mess. Perhaps it will inspire those who feel less handy to give it a shot themselves.

There's no question that those beautiful aftermarket bumpers you can buy are often worth the very high price tags. However, being a simple man of basic means, I'd prefer to try and save some bucks and do it myself.

I started off with 4 basic lugs a friend of mine cut on a plasma table out of scrap. The only downside was that the lugs were 8mm thick steel and I felt that was just a little too thin.

So I cut down two of them. Then sandwiched a full lug, an 8mm "spacer" and then a short lug together. I opened up the holes a bit so I could slip a 1.25" pipe through them both.

After much welding and grinding, they're actually not TOO terrible. I'm a very novice welder, so I've been grinding in to the materials, filling them, and then grinding my weld flat. This is painstaking but it also lets me examine my welds as I go. Holes and cracks become quite obvious.

Anyway, I'm the slowest fabricator ever, so it might be awhile before I have any progress updates. The last picture was taken yesterday.

I also made a couple of videos of me making these things, so if you're at all interested in watching someone drill holes and weld, here is a link to the first one:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbPlInEU3w[/ame]

It's about as exciting to watch as you'd expect. Don't click unless you're so bored that watching paint dry actually seems interesting.

I'm a somewhat novice welder myself and definitely still learning. Although the welder I have available is very limited so not sure how much I can learn till I use a better one. But anyway I surely enjoy seeing others fabrication projects (both amateur and pro) and enjoy posting mine as well. I definitely like the idea of making stand alone shackle mounts with the stock bumper. Reminds me of the old chevy army trucks.

A little constructive criticism. I hope that's okay with you but I feel it's a safety issue. Using just the stock three bumper mount bolt locations for shackle mounts/winch has proven too weak for many. Even the factory used a longer bumper mount/tow hook bracket for tow hook equipped XJs. Utilizing at least one hole further toward the rear on the frame helps to distribute the load.

Also, this may not be as crucial but a bar or tube connecting the two plates (on inside of each plate) would strengthen them a lot since they're essentially single shear mounting to the outside of the frame rail. Just imagine pulling to the passenger side off the right shackle, how much stress the frame and bolts would have being pulled outward. Using a strap to both shackles for pulls would be pretty good too though.

Sent via messenger pigeon. I talk, he types.