Ascender'nMN builds WB4 II

[Ascender'nMN84]

Originally Posted by Natedog

Wertymade has several good looking bumpers for the Ascender front and rear, but searching the web for pictures is not the most helpful.
https://www.wertymade.com/products/
WM-18 and WM-19 look the most intriguing to me, but there are a couple others if you scroll down his site.

ScalerFab is another I've looked at and they also have a few interesting options. I like that they have pictures of their bumpers on a K-5 Ascender. I have a couple rear bumpers of theirs for my trucks of a different brand, but TBH was unimpressed with the fit of their brackets to the framerails. Makes me slightly nervous going forward I guess.

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[mgputer]

I feel your pain. Put a bumper on to make it all pretty and then it sucks on the rocks.

Those wertymade are nice bumpers.

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[Ascender'nMN84]

Originally Posted by mgputer

I feel your pain. Put a bumper on to make it all pretty and then it sucks on the rocks.

Those wertymade are nice bumpers.

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Well when I bought that RC4WD bumper it was about the only aftermarket bumper on the market. I also never liked that it didn't match the rear but maybe that's just me.

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[Ascender'nMN84]

Maybe I just need to start practicing/learning some brazing...

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[CODYBOY]

I know a guy who could help you out with that!
Ernie

[smog]

Originally Posted by Natedog

Wertymade has several good looking bumpers for the Ascender front and rear, but searching the web for pictures is not the most helpful.
https://www.wertymade.com/products/
WM-18 and WM-19 look the most intriguing to me, but there are a couple others if you scroll down his site.

No pics on his page? Seems unusual, but he has some neat sounding products there.

I have an RC4WD bumper on my F100. I did bend my own mounting brackets to raise and pull it in a bit, but it seems to me it could easily be raised even more should a guy want to. Its a nice bumper.

[durok]

A great many of WertyMade's products can be seen in one spot here:

https://www.hobbytown.com/wertymade/b-nkj-2550

I gotta say for the price, my Ascender Flat-top Stubby from them is unbeatable.

Fits great, super-strong welds, I smack it hard into rocks constantly.

Makes a great carrying handle...

I doubt I'll buy metal bumpers elsewhere in the foreseeable future!

Pics of it mounted here:

Ummm...

BTW - my K10 body has its front body posts hacked short, and then dropped, so my body rests directly on the bumper...

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by Ascender'nMN84

ScalerFab is another I've looked at and they also have a few interesting options. I like that they have pictures of their bumpers on a K-5 Ascender. I have a couple rear bumpers of theirs for my trucks of a different brand, but TBH was unimpressed with the fit of their brackets to the framerails. Makes me slightly nervous going forward I guess.

They make some 'nice looking' stuff, but have heard some reports that the fit and finish could be better.

Originally Posted by Ascender'nMN84

Well when I bought that RC4WD bumper it was about the only aftermarket bumper on the market. I also never liked that it didn't match the rear but maybe that's just me.

They make some nice looking bumpers too, but the welded 'tube' bumpers sometimes aren't very well welded, more slag than weld unfortunately.

Originally Posted by Ascender'nMN84

Maybe I just need to start practicing/learning some brazing...

Yes!

Originally Posted by CODYBOY

I know a guy who could help you out with that!
Ernie

Originally Posted by durok

A great many of WertyMade's products can be seen in one spot here:

https://www.hobbytown.com/wertymade/b-nkj-2550

I gotta say for the price, my Ascender Flat-top Stubby from them is unbeatable.

Fits great, super-strong welds, I smack it hard into rocks constantly.

Makes a great carrying handle...

I doubt I'll buy metal bumpers elsewhere in the foreseeable future!

Pics of it mounted here:

Ummm...

BTW - my K10 body has its front body posts hacked short, and then dropped, so my body rests directly on the bumper...

Yes, unfortunately every time I wonder what A Wertymade bumper, slider, etc look like, I must resort to Google search instead of his website. It's more work to post pictures, but it would help sell more product. They do look like one of the best made steel bumpers with actual proper welds and materials!

[Ascender'nMN84]

Originally Posted by CODYBOY

I know a guy who could help you out with that!
Ernie

Oh you're on my top 3 "brains to pick" list before I light a torch.

Originally Posted by durok

A great many of WertyMade's products can be seen in one spot here:

https://www.hobbytown.com/wertymade/b-nkj-2550

I gotta say for the price, my Ascender Flat-top Stubby from them is unbeatable.

Fits great, super-strong welds, I smack it hard into rocks constantly.

Makes a great carrying handle...

I doubt I'll buy metal bumpers elsewhere in the foreseeable future!

Pics of it mounted here:

Ummm...

BTW - my K10 body has its front body posts hacked short, and then dropped, so my body rests directly on the bumper...

I remember when you added it. Looks really nice. Personally, especially for the K-5 I like a bumper that covers the whole front of the truck. Your's looks killer as is!

Originally Posted by Natedog

They make some 'nice looking' stuff, but have heard some reports that the fit and finish could be better.



They make some nice looking bumpers too, but the welded 'tube' bumpers sometimes aren't very well welded, more slag than weld unfortunately.



Yes!








Yes, unfortunately every time I wonder what A Wertymade bumper, slider, etc look like, I must resort to Google search instead of his website. It's more work to post pictures, but it would help sell more product. They do look like one of the best made steel bumpers with actual proper welds and materials!

Thinking back I have some of their sliders on one of those trucks that I had to file to get holes to line up. Wertymade will defintely be getting more of a look and maybe I'll get lucky and find a pic online. I'm interested in their rear bumper for the Blazer too.

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[durok]

I definitely agree that a full-width bumper is better for the K-5!

Just wanted to make it clear that the WertyMade product fitted extremely well at the mounting points, and once installed is not going anywhere!

And I also agree with Natedog - I went WertyMade because I prefer the welds on their product, and the price is more reasonable.

[Ascender'nMN84]

Finally got around to ordering the parts for TBL. Had thoughts about swapping to 32P gears but stuck with the 48P for now. Should be to me by Saturday.

I received my onetoomanyrc's order yesterday. Well most of it anyway. They forgot my rock lights and (I'm assuming by no fault of their own) one of the lightbars I got was bent. After a quick email, the rock lights are being sent out with a replacement for the bent bar too. Luke at onetoomanyrc's has been great to deal with and I highly recommend his products.

I did, however, just place another order with a different company for some additional lights. Powershift RC Technologies is a sponsor for an upcoming G6 and night run in about a month. I'm hoping between the 2 orders I'll be able to light up pretty much my entire fleet. Pics will come as progress is made

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[Ascender'nMN84]

Funny, we were talking bumpers and brands the other day. Yesterday I get a notification on FB, "newest sponsor," of our upcoming event, "is ScalerFab!!" Now unlike Powershift RC Technologies, I probably will NOT be ordering from them at this time.

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[Ascender'nMN84]

Back with a (mostly) pointless update: the 14th of this month is my clubs annual nighttime G6 and fun run. To prep for this, I've been going through several rigs, beefing up parts I'm pretty sure will fail at this event. Biggest "problem" is/was the number of tactic servos in 3 of the trucks. (Disclaimer: only one of those is in a truck I own, I also maintain trucks for 2 buddies) I usually live by a saying I saw in a tattoo shop when I was a wee lad of 18, "cheap tattoos aren't good, and good tattoos aren't cheap". I know there are corners that can be cut to save a few bucks along the way but usually I try to hit the middle option when making purchases. Not the cheapest, but not blowing my bankroll either.

Which brings us to this morning and servos... I've been reading a lot of you guys liking the DS3218 lately so I figured I'd give them a shot.

Deal. Of. The. Week... I picked up 3 of them, and I won't go into full details, but lets just say I'll have 3 of them here today for less than $20. Worth the gamble in my book.

My question is, "how waterproof are they??" This event will ABSOLUTELY see trucks fully submerged multiple times. Odds are good that I'll tear them apart and hit them with some marine grease, but is the board coated? I have conformal coating on hand if need be. TIA!

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[durok]

Pretty sure the board isn't coated - here's the latest info on the servo:

What the newest cheap servo hotness?

Has a blow-up picture of a disassembled servo...

HTH!

[Ascender'nMN84]

Originally Posted by durok

Pretty sure the board isn't coated - here's the latest info on the servo:

What the newest cheap servo hotness?

Has a blow-up picture of a disassembled servo...

HTH!

I appreciate the link and info. I had a feeling they wouldn't be, but people keep raving about them both here and the book of faces. After adding them to my cart and seeing less than $20 total, same day shipping for all 3, I figured it was worth the gamble.

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[durok]

I love mine, but I don't drive in the wet... So can't verify that they are waterproof.

[Ascender'nMN84]

After a very trying G6 over the weekend, I can report that after going through them and coating the board and throwing some marine grease inside, both that I installed performed flawlessly. What I cannot report on is how my Ascender performed.... Truth be told, TBL has no lights and my options were limited and I wasn't happy with any of them. There were quite a few VERY surprised people seeing me drive something other than an Ascender. Priority #1 now that the event is done is light this thing to beyond and back. Thing is I'm no wiring genius so it make take a couple attempts and ideas to make it presentable to the general public.

On a kinda cool side note this happened yesterday..

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[mgputer]

Originally Posted by Ascender'nMN84

After a very trying G6 over the weekend, I can report that after going through them and coating the board and throwing some marine grease inside, both that I installed performed flawlessly. What I cannot report on is how my Ascender performed.... Truth be told, TBL has no lights and my options were limited and I wasn't happy with any of them. There were quite a few VERY surprised people seeing me drive something other than an Ascender. Priority #1 now that the event is done is light this thing to beyond and back. Thing is I'm no wiring genius so it make take a couple attempts and ideas to make it presentable to the general public.

On a kinda cool side note this happened yesterday..

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It looks like a Christmas tree! Really cool pic.

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[Ascender'nMN84]

Well well I cannot believe it's been almost a year since my last update to this thread.... To be completely honest TBL has been sitting on the shelf for quite some time. I'll spare everyone the long details but RC had taken a back seat to wedding planning and budgeting the last 6 months. Now that we're just a little over 2 weeks away from the big day, for my own sanity and stress relief, I've been turning wrenches/drivers again. The main reason this truck has been a dust collector for basically the past year was the swap from the RC4WD to the SSD front bumper. When I made that change I lost my light bar mounting point. I'd say a good 75-80% of my trailing is done after dark due to work schedule and family stuff on weekends so another truck was always grabbed on those occasions.

Before I could fully get my lighting plan in action, TBL needed an electronics upgrade REAL bad. This was another large contributing factor to this rig sitting as these all had been in the truck since the beginning of this thread a couple years ago. Stock dynamite ESC, the cheaper of the waterproof savox servos (because budget and lack of knowledge at the time) a 27T trailmaster from Holmes Hobbies and a dead receiver in the box. Minus the previously mentioned reciever, everything else still functioned, I just needed more than what any of those could offer, so off to the parts drawer they go.

I didn't do a lot of product pics or install progress pics this go round but here's where we sit as of right now:

-Mamba X paired up with a 2280kv Castle Slate
-New 3ch reciever
-Savox 1230sg conformal coated and marine greased
-BPCustoms battery and electronics tray (this was a tough pill to swallow as the stock battery tray was a major contributing factor when purchasing my first kit back in the pre-HD pinion and driveshaft days.)
-Powershift Technology OEM K5 lighting kit with Spare Time Hobbies lenses over the rear buckets
-New rear body post mounting bracket that is now square and a few mm's shorter.
-Intheworks RC high clearance links



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[Ascender'nMN84]

The next big debate I've been having is placement of my big light bar. As of this post, a decision has not to be made about final placement, but I'm kind of left with 1 of 3 options as I see it

A) poke holes in the roof in the "traditional" location


B) throw scale realism out the window by mounting the lightbar through the windshield


C) Mount a TRX4 Defender roof rack and attach lights to it.


My biggest gripe about A and C are they both make the rig taller. Not by a ton obviously, but I need all the help I can get when it comes to clearance. I really like how option B protects the light in the event of a tumble (who does that???) and still keeps my vertical clearance as it sits currently. Not using traditional K5 rear body posts kind of handcuffs me to ride height. Input is always welcome.

I forgot to mention in the previous post that I swapped out my Pitbull Growlers for some new chrome SSD beadlocks wrapped with Pitbull XOR's with CI foams. Getting very excited to get this thing in the trail real soon. Just need work to quit interfering with my fun.

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