Steel or aluminum exo/truggy cage???

[AnimalHippie]

Just doing research for the future of my build. I plan on turning my Trx-4 defender into a truggy. I'm going to use a axial nukizer body for this build. From everyone's experience which material has turned out the best? I know steel is stronger, but heavier. Does aluminum hold up to the falls & drops like you'd think steel would? Any advice on this would be much appreciated! Hope everyone has a great day!

[MAC FAB]

3/16" and 1/4" aluminum rod (6061 T-6) works fine if triangulated properly. It may look a little large on your rig (1/4"), scales to a 2-1/2" tube on your 1:1. 3/16" steel rod works well. Heavy wall tube works well. 1/4" HR tube at .065" wall thickness is really strong as well, weighs a little more than the steel 3/16" rod. The bigger question will be how you intend to weld it together (access to a tig welder that can do AC for aluminum), that will dictate what you use if its gonna get beaten up. Fixture up the steel cage and weld away. Clamp the heck out of the aluminum version, it moves all over creation with heat. The span of your "tube" kinda dictates how heavy you need to go. Any tubes that you can put radius/roll into are way stronger. Look at an Alumicraft class 10 buggy for an example. If you are doing a simple cage for the bed, I'd use the 3/16" steel rod, bends easy, cut with bolt cutters if you don't have a saw. My experience with building cages is for the go fast world, they have to take the abuse and stay straight. They'd easily survive the crawler life. Calculate how much material you'll need and run that with the numbers below. That may sway your decision.

3/16" aluminum rod weighs .032 lbs per foot.
1/4" aluminum rod weighs .058 lbs per foot.
1/4" steel tube at .065 weighs .1284 lbs per foot.
3/16" steel rod weighs .094 lbs per foot.

[AnimalHippie]

Originally Posted by MAC FAB

3/16" and 1/4" aluminum rod (6061 T-6) works fine if triangulated properly. It may look a little large on your rig (1/4"), scales to a 2-1/2" tube on your 1:1. 3/16" steel rod works well. Heavy wall tube works well. 1/4" HR tube at .065" wall thickness is really strong as well, weighs a little more than the steel 3/16" rod. The bigger question will be how you intend to weld it together (access to a tig welder that can do AC for aluminum), that will dictate what you use if its gonna get beaten up. Fixture up the steel cage and weld away. Clamp the heck out of the aluminum version, it moves all over creation with heat. The span of your "tube" kinda dictates how heavy you need to go. Any tubes that you can put radius/roll into are way stronger. Look at an Alumicraft class 10 buggy for an example. If you are doing a simple cage for the bed, I'd use the 3/16" steel rod, bends easy, cut with bolt cutters if you don't have a saw. My experience with building cages is for the go fast world, they have to take the abuse and stay straight. They'd easily survive the crawler life. Calculate how much material you'll need and run that with the numbers below. That may sway your decision.

3/16" aluminum rod weighs .032 lbs per foot.
1/4" aluminum rod weighs .058 lbs per foot.
1/4" steel tube at .065 weighs .1284 lbs per foot.
3/16" steel rod weighs .094 lbs per foot.

Thank you brotha! That info will help allot! I have access to any kind of welder I may need. Just wasn't sure about weight & strength between the two. Don't want to build something that's gonna be all bent after a few runs. I'm kinda hard on my rig :-)

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