Jim, welting can come in several different flavors. Used in clothing or furniture it can be simply folding the fabric over to double it and placing it between the two pieces you are sewing together, it can be flat welting with a flat strip of card board or when sewing a round cord into it is often referred to as beaded welting. I have seen welting on some vintage cars where the fabric is just doubled over and placed between the sheet metal, this leave a nice small bead visible without using a cord.
The AD pickups trucks only used the "beaded" welting and only on the finished side at the rear of the front fender. All of the other Anti-squeak material was as we’ve mentioned several times, is simply flat tar paper strips as is pictured in the photo from Chevs of the 40’s that Tim posted. The sheet metal was pre-painted prior to assembly of the front clip so the fender welting on a newly delivered truck would have been black since it would have been an added expense to stock welting of every color.
Alvin I can't document this but I'd bet a large pizza on it, that all the fender welting used at all the assembly plants was just simply black beaded welting. It was very inexpensive being just light gauge lacquered canvas material and as I said it covered the gaps from mismatched or poorly formed seams. .
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
