wxmcpo

Thanks for the compliments on the truck, I still smile everytime I see my truck. Even though the parking spots are small out here, the gas is expensive and my wife has a much smaller Honda, I still drive my truck as much as possible. I just love driving it!

I just spent close to $500 on the truck tonight, ordered a brand new Pioneer Avic D3 for it, can't wait to get it installed. So will have to look in the custom badges and have to decide what I want on them. Have a couple of ways I could go with it. I've got some Cowboys windows stickers on the back window and everyone knows I'm a huge Cowboys fan so I just got my personalized license plates that read CWBYFN. So I could continue the Cowboys theme and get Cowboys Edition or I've called my truck Black Beauty since the day I bought her so I could go with something along those lines.

What do you guys think?

Ty

how about "its still only 2wd"?

just kidding man, I think you have one of the nicest trucks I have ever seen, and I know you put lots of work into it!

wxmcpo

Ha ha funny.................NOT!

j/k man. I don't care about guys ragging on it cause it's only a 2WD, doesn't bother me at all actually because I know alot of guys that would gladly love to have it even though it is only 2WD.

Actually I haven't put alot of work into it, just a lot of money.

wxmcpo

Hey Dre - Which badges did you order and how did oyu get them to put the skull picture on there? Just wondering cause if I go the Cowboys route them I'm gonna want the Cowboys star on there. Thanks man!

LovetheTide

Where in the hell did you get a D3 for 500 bucks?

dre23

WXMCPO,
If you look on the first page of this thread you'll see that I got oval badges with just a skull on it to replace the badges on my grille and tailgate. I got these from www.billettechnology.com . Here is a link that Heidi (from talking to her she seems to be the CEO or president of the company) sent me (see the link below between the paragraph separation). There are 1,000 images of badges that they have custom made on this link below from photobucket, and once you take a look at their work, I'll think you'll be ABSOLUTELY blown away...I know that I surely was! There is just such intricate detail and attention paid to the little curves, shapes, and nuances for a piece of artwork that unless people come right up to your truck and look at it, it will probably never get noticed (well I mean, of course it would get noticed either way, but not so closely that people would be able to pick out minor flaws). I say this b/c I mean they could do a half azzed job realizing that most other people probably wont be able to get a close up view of your badge while you drive by them, and thus wouldn't put such time and effort into their work. Once I got my badges from them, I did a once over (more like a "10th over") & found no flaws, cracks, mistakes, or any errors in workmanship! Take a look at this Photobucket link and tell me what you think. I KNOW, and you will know too after looking thru this link of some of their previous artwork, that they will have absolutely no problem whatsoever making a 'simple' Cowboy's Football star after you get thru scrolling thru this photobucket albulm! Let me know what you think!!!

http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k19/newtie31/?start=all

As far as to how they make them (and Yes, they actually make them, they are not simply a warehouse, the are also the manufacturer of each individual piece) for me and my simple mind to explain it is gonna be kind of hard, but I believe that each badge is CNC machine made. The actual artwork is "shot" w/a high powered water hose that emits such a strong, powerful and focused stream of water, that it actually is a "Water Laser" (LOL, felt like Dr. Evil for some reason when I said "Laser" just then...yeah, I know, I'm an idiot! ) and they take your design and download it onto the machine's computer and the water laser reads/scans it and then can reproduce an exact replica of either the artwork that you have chosen or something that you have picked from the gallery. I have NO IDEA how absolutely hard & fast this jet stream of water must be shooting out of the nozzle, but my oval Skull badges are heavy (I mean they really have got some weight to them!) and the skull is not just merely outlined on the badges, it is actually imbedded quite deeply into the surface of this hard metal badge, so you know that this water jet stream to 'cut' through that CNC machined metal surface must be a really powerful & potentially dangerous tool.

I hope this helps Bro!

P.S.
And if you do decide to get the Cowboys Football star done, make sure that you send them artwork of the ACTUAL Cowboy's Football star, not just some random start that you want, as they can easily do the Cowboy's Star, and even in color if you wanted to go that route with the white and blue.

wxmcpo

ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN:IT&ih=011

The guy had 10 for sale and I was able to scoop up the last one. I figure I use paypal to pay so I'm covered there and I'm thinking of adding a squaretrade extended warranty on it.

wxmcpo

Dre - Originally I was talking about your side badges, but now that I realize your ovals aren't just stickers I may have to look at those as well. What I was really interested in though was the side badges. What size did you order and did you actually call them and talk to them about what you wanted on the badge or did you simply fill out the order form?

I still don't know whether to go Cowboys themed or Black Beauty. Leaning towards the Cowboys theme though. Here are a couple of ideas I have for what I'd what it to look like;









I don't have Rots any longer (Navy housing won't allow Rots), but I have owned 3 in my life and plan to get 1 maybe 2 more when I get back to the mainland and get my own place so that's why I was thinking a Rotty's head for the Black Beauty theme.

What do you guys think and if you have any better suggestions please let me know.

Ty

I like that third one you posted that best.

how about you open up a poll?

dre23

Stickers? Stickers? Stickers? I ain't puttin no friggin stickers on my truck when I could buy real badges for my baby. Hellz to the naw, those are exact duplicate replicas of the badges that are on our grille and tailgate and I've got to remove the entire ugly stock blue ones w/the word "Ford" on them in order to attach these badges...NOT stickers! Sorry, lol, alright, now that we've got that cleared up...

As for my side badges if you look at my second post on the first page of this thread, you can see that I went w/a company called www.billetbadges.com
If you go the gallery on this site he has many different options as well as once again you can choose your own artwork. I went with the 2.5" badge and will be taking off the stock ones tomorrow and applying these new "Skullz Edition" ones.

I DID NOT fill out no form online (when spending money on mods for my truck I always prefer to speak to a person over filling out some impersonal online order form), but called Steve, the company owner up directly, and spoke w/him personally atleast half a dozen times in regards to what design I wanted and we also corresponded via email as he made little changes to the design & sent me each little change before he actually started any actual work on the metal. Once I was satisfied w/the design, I gave him payment via Paypal (that is the one major difference atleast in my mind is that Steve at billetbadges makes you pay upfront before you get the badges, while Heidi at billettechnology only has you remit payment once the actually mail the badges out to you). I felt somewhat uncomfortable paying upfront, but after speaking to him on the phone multiple times I felt more reassured that he really was a good guy, as well as Paypal has some sort of security measures in place where you can take back your payment if the person is a fraud. But anyways, rest assured, I got my badges from him on time, although it did seem as tho he was running a one man show and I did have to kindly stay on top of him to make sure he hadn't forgotten about me (which he openly admitted to me he had forgotten a couple of times and to not be afraid to ring him up cuz he is very busy). He charged me a total of $120 for everything, badges, tax, ship, whatever etc...$120 total right to my door which I felt for the quality of the workmanship was a very fair price.

Steve's Contact Info:
email; billetbadges@***.net
Phone; (619)818-1965