Material question

BigBrokenZJ

Active member
Been looking into building a drawer and tray for the back of the truck. I’m obviously looking for that happy medium between strength/durability and weight.

It seems like most drawers are made of 3/4 ply, but I wonder about the long term durability. I’ve had work trucks with truck vaults and they always seemed to hold up great, but they weigh a ton.

My next option was a light gauge steel box tubing/and angle iron frame wrapped in sheet metal. This seems to come out in a similar weight and aside
From rust I feel has a very long term durability.

Then I stumbled onto overlandunderbudget’s Tacoma build and saw he used bonded aluminum or aluminum composite sheets for the skins on his camper.

Didn’t find anything with a search, so does anyone have experience working with this stuff? Would 6mm hold up to being the skins on a drawer system?
 

Hummelator

Adventurer
Have you looked into decked storage systems? I'm the 'I'd rather build it myself' type but decked has a great set up. And it gives you a nice flat platform that can support a good amount of weight ( evenly distributed)
I had a decked system for my 07 tundra with a 6.5 box. Weighed somewhere around 240# if I remember correctly.
 

BigBrokenZJ

Active member
I actually have a decked now, and it is great. I’m upgrading to a bigger fridge and and want to do a slightly larger single drawer next to a slide out tray.
 

NatersXJ6

Explorer
If I wasn’t looking for weather-tight, I would build from 1/2” or 3/8” Baltic birch plywood. I did a lot of comparison between various materials when I started building my chuckbox and various storage boxes and always ended up with wood due to strength vs weight and ease of construction. 3/4” seems like heavy and overkill to me, but many choose it for screw holding and other construction ability.
 

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