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| 2010 TOUR: Aluminess Products, Inc. |
| Gordon White | Tuesday, 29 June, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Truck Camper Magazine visits Aluminess Products, Inc. in Santee, California and finds a busy team welding off-road ready aluminum bumpers and boxes. Let the sparks fly!  To say that all truck campers are off-road or overland vehicles is like saying all cars are all Formula One racecars. That’s not to say that truck campers are not off-road or overland vehicles. If a truck camper rig is designed with that specific purpose, and assembled with that specific purpose, a truck camper is every inch an off-road and overland vehicle. Go anywhere? Camp anywhere? You bet. If you are at all interested in what it takes to build a true off-road and overland capable truck camper, count Aluminess on your team. Aluminess lives and breathes off-road and overland vehicles from Sportsmobile vans to Land Cruisers to full-size trucks and campers. They’ve participated in the builds of some of the most capable off-road and overland rigs on earth. You’ll see one such truck and camper later in this article, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We interviewed Dave Hoskins, President of Aluminess Products, for our story, “Dave Hoskins of Aluminess: Taking Aluminum Farther” and learned everything we could about his company and products over the phone. A year later, it was finally time to step foot into the Aluminess factory, walk between the welding sparks, and experience this off-road company in person.  The Aluminess Products team: Dave Hoskins, Diane Hoskins, Sadie Hoskins (dog), Tyler Hendricks, Justin Boyd, Alan Leuthard, Matt Walker, Kyle Needham, Tim Hoskins, and Mike Jansen.
LEFT: Tyler Hendricks designs the front and rear bumpers at Aluminess in SolidWorks. SolidWorks is a three dimensional program that allows Aluminess to customize their existing library of aluminum bumper products for a specific truck or customer application. Tyler also showed us how he uses “old school” techniques of first cutting the bumper shapes out of cardboard to check the fit before welding the final aluminum product. CENTER: Behind Dave Hoskins desk is a wall chart that tracks all of the customer orders and work flow. As you can see, the Aluminess order pipeline is very full. RIGHT: When we visit a new company, we usually get a group shot. Of course we were teasing the welding crew that they couldn’t wear their welding hoods for the shot. And then, just for fun, we changed our minds. The question is, are they smiling?
LEFT: Mike Jansen is a TIG welder who really enjoys his work. TIG welding, also called gas tungsten arc welding, is known for resulting in high quality welds and requires a high level of skill. On the morning of our visit, Mike was dressing welds (sanding them smooth) for a set of rear swing-out arms. CENTER: Once Mike put the aluminum sections through their multi-pass sanding, the results were quite clear. In this photograph, you can see the more rough first sanding level (right) and the second much cleaner sanding level (left). After the pieces are welded to form the swing-out arms, the aluminum will be powder coated and take on an even cleaner and smoother finish. RIGHT: After cutting and sanding the aluminum, Mike set the swing-out arm pieces on a jig and TIG welded the swing-out arms together. As he completed swing-out arm sections, Mike placed them on a rack behind his welding station. When we inspected the sections, the aluminum was still quite hot to the touch.
LEFT: Matt Walker is also a TIG welder at Aluminess. Matt was welding aluminum ladders one after another on the day of our visit. He explained that he likes to weld ladders in sets of eight for efficiency. In this photograph, you see Matt setting up an aluminum ladder on a jig for welding. CENTER: There’s no mistaking Matt for anyone else when he throws down his red skull welding hood. Here Matt is TIG welding an aluminum ladder, scary mask and all. RIGHT: Side by side with Mike, Matt was methodically building ladder after ladder. The ladders in this photograph have been tack welded, a type of welding that holds the aluminum parts together. Once the ladders are tack welded, a final welding pass will ensure strength and durability. Aluminess products come with a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects in material and workmanship so there’s no room for anything less.
Unlike Mike and Matt who are focused on TIG welding, Kyle Needham is primarily a MIG welder. MIG welding, also known as gas metal arc welding (GMAW), is a faster welding technique than TIG welding, but results in equally strong welds. Once completed, Aluminess will dress (or sand) the MIG welds smooth for powder coating. In these photographs, Kyle is working on the Aluminess front bumper for Barry Andrews' Dodge PowerWagon.
Barry Andrews' Four Wheel Camper and Dodge Power Wagon rig was in the Aluminess shop having custom front and rear bumpers manufactured and installed. This is an interesting truck and camper combination as the Dodge Power Wagon is especially outfitted for off-road and overland travel. Standard features on the Dodge Power Wagon include a Hemi V8, electronically controlled locking front and rear differentials, and an electronically-disconnecting sway bar. Together with the Four Wheel Camper and Aluminess bumpers and boxes, this is a serious off-road and overland rig. We have a story in the works with Barry Andrews in which we hope to learn more about how he scraped, scratched, and generally beat to heck this off-road truck and camper combination. Based on what we saw, Barry is one guy who is fearless about using his truck camper to go anywhere. You go Barry. Rock on, literally.
LEFT: Alan Leuthard was working on an aluminum roof rack with a custom roll out solar panel shelf. Most customers who order aluminum roof racks from Aluminess have the solar panels mounted to the roof rack itself. The customer who ordered this roof rack needs his whole rack available for other items and custom ordered a retractable shelf for the solar panel. CENTER: Here Alan is working on the pull-out tray the solar panel would roll out on. To create the various notches and hand holds for the tray, Alan used a hole punch press. Once the press punched out the aluminum section he needed removed, Alan sanded the punched areas smooth. RIGHT: Early in the afternoon, Alan had installed the pull-out tray into the roof rack and was testing the fit. Alan builds all of the aluminum roof racks at Aluminess.
When aluminum is MIG welded, the resulting welds are very strong, but not as aesthetically pleasing as TIG welds. To make the MIG welds smooth, Aluminess team member Justin Boyd dresses the MIG welds before powder coating. They call Justin Boyd the Tin Man at Aluminess because he’s often covered in little shavings of aluminum.
One thing that impressed us at Aluminess was the fit and finish on their bumpers, boxes, and other accessories. After the Aluminum bumpers have been welded, sanded, and power coated, they are extremely solid and smooth to the touch. All around the Aluminess shop are finished aluminum bumpers, boxes, racks, ladders, and roof racks ready to go. It was fun exploring these products and seeing how stout and refined they are. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that these aluminum products can take just about anything you can throw at them, and then some. In full disclosure, the more Angela and I go truck camping, the more interested we become in off-road and overland travel. Whether it be camping on the beach at Assateague Island National Seashore, driving eight miles down an unimproved road in Wire Pass, Utah to explore a slot canyon, or the idea that South America is just down the road a few thousand miles, we’re ready for more. At least we think we are. If and when we get the nerve to leave pavement behind, Aluminess will get a call. We were impressed with their products and more impressed with their dedication to the off-road and overland niche. As we said in the introduction, if you want to build a serious off-road and overland capable vehicle, count Aluminess on your team. For more information about Aluminess Products, Inc., visit their website at www.aluminess.com. For more Truck Camper Magazine articles on Aluminess Products, Inc., visit www.truckcampermagazine.com/aluminess. To join the discussion about this article, go to our Facebook or Twitter page. |
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