Me and my retarded brother are having an argument and we need to know if metal is stronger then plastic.
I wonder what would occur if your brother was actually the one correct. Metals are generally stronger/harder than plastics. Unless you count mercury, which is a liquid, or pure gold which is actually very soft. Teflon is a plastic, and i'm sure we can agree that it is harder than pure gold. The gold jewelry that people buy isn't actually pure gold, that's why it is hard.
Plastic Stronger Than Steel
The issue with any usual wall anchor is the shear weight applied to it. Logic would suggest that anything that breaches drywall and exits the back side to expand and hold, would be stronger. That would be especially true if one was installing a CLEAT to drywall, and where the access did not allow always screwing direct to studs. The problem with Hollow Wall Anchors is that they need a larger access hole to press through and open. They might also be problematic when attempting to tighten and pull the CLIP up tight against the inside face of the wall. Those metal ones you mention, also come in plastic. Which one anyone uses should be determined by weight and ease of operation. It's pretty much a personal choice beyond that. Steven Wolf
Metal is stronger than plastic
Hi Noah: In order to avoid fratricide on your part I would like to inform you that both of you are correct. Take out a plastic knife. Someone has already mentioned that it will cut Hg as it is a liq at RT, but consider the mp of these metals [1] 87 Francium Fr ?27 °C (radioactive) 55 Caesium Cs ?28.55 °C 31 Gallium Ga ?29.76 °C On a hot day these will be liquids that can therefore be cut by our knife. All the group 1 metals Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs, (Fr) can be cut by our plastic knife (I use to use a nickel spatula for Na and K). The group 2 metals are also soft and I wouldn't be surprised if they can be cut by some hardened plastic, even a kitchen frying spatula. The copper pipes in my condo have corroded away after less than 20 years. We are about to replace the pipes with PEX: cross-linked high-density polyethylene that has a guranteed lifetime of 25 years. So which do you think is the stronger Cu or PEX? Bullet proof vests are made of the polymer Kevlar ...5 times stronger than steel on an equal weight basis...[2] They can now make polyethylene with ~a million CH2 units and it is being considered for bullet proof vests if not already in use (bullets are made of metal by the way). So the answer is that in most cases typical metals are stronger than plastics but there are several examples where plastics are definitely stronger than metal: so shake hands with your brother! cheers, drp
