The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed plastic deck boards for bed wood.

Well I finished installing my rotten pine bed wood with plastic deck boards. It looks very nice. Nice naturalish color and wood grain. I got lucky with the dimensions of the old bed wood and the new deck boards. The old eight board bed wood measure 5 3/4", but the plastic boards measure 5 1/2". I was able to cheat by moving the outer boards inward, thus preventing gaps which would not be covered up by the bed strips.
I cut spacers out of the scraps of the plastic boards to keep the wood from moving side to side (plastic doesn't expand like wood, so these spacers won't cause any buckling). I drilled holes in the middle of the spacers so that bed strip bolts will keep them in place. I put the spacers between the boards on the top of the 3 center cross sills (21 in total). I did have to drill a few holes in some of the cross sills to accommodate a few of the bed strip bolts, but not as many as I thought that would.
By the way, I did not router the grooves on the edges of the plastic boards for the bed strips. You can't even tell the difference. The grooves in the wood boards are there to capture the bed strips to keep everything in place when the wood expands and contracts. Not needed with plastic boards.
Carl

Pictures my friend, we need some pictures!

..........or not.

Pics before bolts installed.

Carl,
That looks Great !!

Looks good, and will last a long time.

Thanks, Carl

If/when my soon-to-be-painted bed boards go bad, I'll be looking for black plastic deck boards.
I bought the boards several years ago - when "plastic" decks boards were uncommon and untested.

Nice job.

Me likey a lot. Very slick.

Looks nice. Couldn't help but notice your brush ax. Working truck or window dressing? My first real job out of high school was on a track gang for the railroad. I learned to hate those brush axes. I cringe every time I see one.

Thanks for the pics Carl. I'm with these guys, it really looks great!

Nice work!!

Thanks for the comments! I was contemplating painting it black, but I don't know how well it would hold up on the plastic. Besides that, the pattern which they put into it makes it look like wood. This truck is my daily driven work truck, so I don't want it to look too nice.
Dave, the Kaiser blade (some people call it a sling blade, I call it a Kaiser blade, emm hmm) is what I consider to be crowd control.

1x6 plastic solid boards - "wood grain" on one side - they are not inexpensive

$294.24 plus tax for 8 boards, but you won't ever need to do it again.
The boards that I used were about half that price, but if I had seen those 1X6 boards that color when I bought mine, I may have been tempted to splurge for them.

What a great looking bed!

I'm thinking a "Tech Tip" here. Carl I think you got a winner with this.

interesting concept. and it looks great. I wonder how well they would hold up on a working truck tho? Especially on a hot summer day, I know my plastic deck boards get a little softer at the end of a hot day in the sun.

What brand of board, Rusty Rod?

How old are the boards?
What is the brand?

I had some deck boards installed two years ago. They do not seem to get softer in NC coastal sun.
They might get harder in a cold winter, but I will never know,

TC, not sure, but they are almost an inch thick

when I put my deck on my house a number of years ago, I needed to add more support for the plastic boards than if they were wood. it will get warm and warp, and also expand BUT, it is sure nice not to have to paint it or worry about rot! I would think they should hold up well in a pickup bed. Mine were "evergrain" brand.

How far apart are/were your floor joists, Mike?

My truck is parked in the full sun all day. Time will tell how it holds up. I figure if it works on a deck, it will work on a truck bed. These boards are ribbed on the bottom. Hopefully that will provide some rigidity.

we went 16" on center instead of 24"

Carl,
That looks good.

I am away from home, but, I'll try to remember to check joist-spacing on my house-deck boards - NC near-shore sunshine, reaching over 100 degrees with no buckling/sagging.

Interesting idea, Carl. But with the nominal lengths available being 8 or 16 ft, it would seem only the 3/4-ton guys wouldn't end up with left overs. Maybe I'd have to find a 1/2-ton guy to go in with on those 16 footers ...

(not that I'm contemplating replacing Charlie's nearly pristine original bed wood ... just struck me that it is a lot of $$ possibly spent on product you can't use -- especially the 1-ton guys)

JM

Any concern about tail pipe close to it or is the original heat shield sufficient?

16" on center

Therefore, I do not now if they would sag with a wider spacing.

Without a load, the tailpipe isn't all that close on mine.