Lone Peak Labs | Plastic vs aluminum camper accessories

We had "a little epiphany," as we put it in the video: our next accessories might be better in roto-molded plastic than in bent, welded aluminum. So we grabbed one of our plastic parts and a grinder and cut it open to see how rigid it really is. Watch the video above, then tell us what we should cut in half next.

What products are better as plastic than metal?

• Recovery Boards
• Coolers
• Tailgate Covers
• Tables
• Junk Drawers, Wall Cault, flip out cooking surface
• Starlink security mounts

Here's the honest backstory. A batch of new accessories was already designed, with files done and tooling underway. Then our supplier raised some hesitation about how they get made. Each part means bending aluminum, bending more aluminum, welding the two pieces together, and then powder coating the whole thing. That's a lot of steps for one part, and every one of them is a place for something to go wrong.

Meanwhile, we've been roto molding plastic parts for a couple of years now, including The Tank. So the question in this Lone Peak Labs episode is simple: is plastic better than metal for what we want to build next? The full video is the Lone Peak Labs Short on YouTube if the player doesn't load.

Weight. Our roto-molded tanks are about 5 mm thick plastic. As we put it in the video, that's roughly the same weight as 2 mm aluminum.

Scratches. Plastic should be a lot more resistant to scratching than powder-coated aluminum, which matters for gear that lives in a truck bed.

Shipping. Fewer worries about parts getting dinged on the way to you. Anyone who has opened a box to find a bent corner knows why that one is on the list.

The idea. Mold the part hollow, cut an opening into it, maybe add shelves inside, and mount it to the camper.

Kyle and Tyler took a grinder to a roto-molded part to see how stiff the plastic is around that size once it's opened up. 

What we saw on camera:

• The caliper read 6.5 at the cut edge, which is about a quarter inch of wall.

• Pushing down on the opened part, it stayed pretty sturdy.

• The ribbing and the shape of the back did a lot of the work. Geometry matters as much as material here.

Short version: the plastic held its shape better than expected, even missing a whole side. 

As we say at the end of the video, plastics are super light, really durable, easy to clean and don't scratch, so they may end up in a lot more of our next-gen gear than we planned. Or maybe Kyle and Tyler just really like cutting things in half.

1. Tell us what to cut in half next. Reply below with the part, material or test you want to see.
2. Tell us plastic or aluminum. Which would you rather have bolted to your camper, and why? Real use cases help us design the right part.
3. Stick around on Trailhub. Members see Lone Peak Labs videos, product releases and early pre-order access first, and help shape what we build next.