The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed Finished My Bed

First time in my life I ever made my bed

This is a driver so I used 1x6 and 1x8 pine lumber, cost $55 Canuck (what is that, like $0.25 USD?) and about 3 hours on the table saw and routing table. Metal strips of course were a little more $$. I gave it 6 or 7 coats of Tung oil, simple easy finish (about 24 hours between coats). Carriage bolts and fender washers from the hardware store. Turned out well for what I need.

I've never made one of these beds and so I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out, but I researched, measured three times and everything seemed to fit really well! Sure beats the 71 year old remnants of bed strips and rotten wood that were in there just a couple days ago.

Installation was a breeze, it did take quite a while with all those bolts but in the end this was one of those rare first-time shots that actually went as planned. That NEVER happens so I probably chewed up all my Lotto luck on this

Isn’t it awesome when a plan comes together?

Awesome job! Im glad you posted this because I literally just got my new steel bed strips and I plan to do the exact same job very soon. Any pointers? My dad is going to help me rip the lumber and we were thinking dado blade the grooves into the wood? Im going to paint mine to black as original. I do have one question that stumps me.... why is it that the 3rd crossmember back dosent touch the bottom of the wood? I have only ever had plywood in mine so i I actually screwed a 2x and some shim materials to get them to touch so the plywood was not flexing in the center. Is the correct wood and bed strips really stiff enough where it dosent bow down without the support? Mines a longbed 3/4t also.

Thanks; and I do love it when a plan comes together.

Barnfind, dadoing would work well. I didn't have a dado blade on hand so I just used a router. Means extra time and effort, but a 3/16" router bit for the channel works well; and then go up a couple sizes to make the shallower outer cut. I made some test passes on scrap first and mic'd everything to make sure the profile was right, but it didn't take long to set up. I ripped all the boards according to the dimensions I found online and they were bang on.

Assemble everything dry first and make sure there's no clearance issues. I couldn't believe mine all fit the first time.

Work across (from one side to the other) and square up the first couple of boards, after that everything should continue to stay lined up by virtue of the carriage bolts. Only finger tighten everything until you get them all in place, then crawl under and tighten everything. I tightened from center-out and did the box mounts last.

I put a 1/8" flat bar at the front of the box to maintain a consistent gap, keep in mind you gotta remove it after.

THAT THIRD CROSSMEMBER I'm glad you mentioned that, I was wondering the same thing. I was also going to shim mine, haven't gotten around to it yet. I have a hard time believing it wouldn't flex under load. I thought I was maybe missing a support there, but maybe that's the way they are? Hopefully somebody else knows that answer.

I was also thinking of black paint, it would look good, original and easy to touch up.

I used ebony stain. You just reapply when needed. Will not blister or peal off.

Yes, that was one of the reasons I ended up going with tung oil - just re-oil from time to time. I'm kind of partial to the look of knotty pine so I didn't go darker - personal choice of course dark/black looks great too, I like the contrast especially against lighter colors.

Do you know which 2 router bits you used on the grooves? I showed my dad yours because we were just talking about doing mine. He likes the router idea better than my dado blade idea. He was just asking if I knew what sizes you used successfully.

Yessir I used a 3/16" for the deeper groove and I believe a 1/2" for the wider, outer "shoulder". Different brands/quality of bits can result in different dimensions and the wood can sometimes give different results, so run some practice strips and mic the results. I imagine some variance is probably acceptable.

By the time I was getting towards the end, my bits were getting dull so invest in some good ones or be prepared to do a lot of cleaning out of the table, it was tearing more than cutting by the time I was finished. But it worked.

Thank you for the info and pointers. As soon as I finish up the interior the bed is next on the list. Not sure if anyone else has done this but im thinking about using that black asphalt type fence paint on all the boards. That stuff is usually super durable and seals it up nice compared to a regular exterior paint. Would probably mimic the way the factory did it somewhat.

Here are some shots of a customer's 52 short bed where he used a different approach. He removed the two "L" shaped side rails, cut a floor out of a 5x10 plywood sheet (it's available), screwed the rails to it with button head screws, and finally panel bonded the side rails back on. I wondered about expansion/contraction but it was done in 2015 and still looks good.

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/xcwM0sdS/Mikes-bed-003.jpg[/img]

Seems like it would look good and work well, especially if it has some texture.


Looks really good, that grain really pops!

I was contemplating doing that with my 54.

Looks great NorthCoast - what, if anything did you do to the rails in terms of paint / sealing before installation?

Thanks Terrance. These are galvanized; I shot the undersides with some Tremclad (I realize that won't last but I was admittedly under the gun to get it done). I must confess that I have so far failed to paint the tops. I'll get that done in the spring. Less than ideal, I know. Priority was getting it insured and driving.