Making the BEST Universal Traction Board Mounting System

Many of you love keeping traction boards (some call them recovery boards) secured in your rigs just in case you get stuck in a situation where more aggressive traction is needed. We also try to keep them in most of our vehicles where storage solutions allow for it, so this past week Matt did another product sprint designing and refining a universal mounting solution for most traction boards available on the market! We 3D printed our first two prototype mounts, and they interface flawlessly with our MOLLE Panels and Bulkhead Accessory Rail (BAR). We're very excited to start producing these and keep offering you guys solutions that maximize bed space while securing essential gear.

We happen to be partial to MAXTRAX as our favorite manufacturer of traction boards because they are rugged, durable, tried-and-true. Their mounting system utilizes a slick quarter-turn locking pin to mount the boards, and they are widely regarded as the industry leader in this segment for good reasons - but their overall mounting system is expensive and restrictive when it comes to different mounting locations, brands and sizes. Matt has had an idea for redesigned mounts kicking around for a little while, and considering we're fully outfitting the Raptor's bed in the very near future (tune in to the Raptor Build series on our YouTube), we had a perfect excuse for getting them drafted up!

While the first 3D print came out flawlessly, there were a couple design changes that needed to be made regarding functionality and fitment. Matt added draft across the part to ensure tolerances will be perfect for the injection-molding process and snug fitment of the mounting nuts or bolts on the back face. We also made the overall depth of the part greater to ensure mounting hardware isn't making contact with larger mounting faces. After incorporating these changes we 3D printed a second prototype, allowing us to mount our MAXTRAX Extreme Boards to the BAR in the Raptor getting us one step closer to having a production-ready part!

A final design update we will need to make before getting this project to the injection-molding phase is creating a hollow support structure on the back face of the mount, as opposed to the solid face that is currently on these first two prototypes (seen below). It is essential for us to design that backing structure for a couple reasons, first to increase rigidity and strength, and second because injection-molding a solid part that thick will cause it to warp when it cools during/after the process. This is one of the reasons injection-molded items normally have a relatively uniform thickness across the entire part, and frequently leverage a hollow support structure on the back face.

Bolting up the MAXTRAX mounting pins to our mount was a breeze and the hardware fit perfectly in the second prototype. The MAXTRAX pins happen to be the same exact dimensions as M10 hardware, meaning that we can offer a much more cost-effective method of securing traction/recovery boards! While we are thrilled you guys will be saving a few bucks on hardware with our kit, we are aiming for an over-built, universal product that prioritizes strength, adjustability and cross-compatibility with most products. We're considering offering these mounts as a kit with economy hardware, or with the MAXTRAX brand pins - we'd love your feedback on what you'd be interested in or consider using on your own setup!

We quickly identified an added perk of using these mounts on our BAR system... this setup allows you to mount traction boards and one of our Universal MOLLE Tech Plates for pouches or mounts carrying additional gear! This lets you keep your most important recovery gear all in one place. We're not letting any space go to waste. In our next YouTube build episode, Matt secures a recovery strap and fire extinguisher to our Bulkhead Accessory Rail (BAR) in addition to 4 MAXTRAX Extreme Boards! With these board mounts secured to our BAR with a set of MAXTRAX mounted, you still have around 15 inches of real estate where a universal Tech Plate and other goodies could be mounted. That's a lot of extra room for tie-downs, shackles, straps, bungees, leashes for your boards - you get the idea. We're really excited to get these mounts into production, please let us know below if you would like to see these as a BuiltRight/Mountech product in the future!

To be fully transparent, Matt has been daily driving the Raptor with the first 3D printed prototypes mounted holding our MAXTRAX Extreme Boards (which aren't very lightweight) for more than a week, and they've held up shockingly well. Considering they were printed out of a somewhat brittle PLA and are being used outside during March in New England, we are pretty impressed. Once they're made of an injection-molded glass fiber-reinforced nylon composite, they will be ridiculously strong and will help keep your odds of getting out of sticky situations high.

Watch the full prototyping video below!