The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed Has anyone used popular

Has anyone used popular for their bed wood? I am thinking it would probably be too soft?

I have not used it for a truck bed, but I have made furniture out of it.

If you want your truck to be a display piece with a pretty bed it would be fine. If you want to use it as a truck, the poplar is going to take damage pretty fast.

Poplat has a Janka hardness of 540. In contrast:
red oak - 1290
black walnut - 1010
heart pine - 1225
Ash - 1303

Janka hardness is a measurement of how much force it takes to press a 0.444" steel ball halfway into into a plank.

I am looking at using apitong (janka 1390) for mine. It is reasonably priced in bulk because they use it for commercial trailers. I also just like the look of it.

I think I have a low cost source for some ash. That looks like a good option.

I have seen more than one ash bed and they do seem to last well. As I recall, ash is difficult to stain uniformly. Might be worth looking into.

Weren't the original beds made from ash or pine, depending on the region of the country where the truck was assembled?

Since it was painted black the grain didn't matter.

I believe original wood was Southern yellow pine.
Then factory painted it black.

Years ago my Dad and Uncle made a bed for their work truck from popler. They creosoted it and it outlasted the truck. You just didn't want to lean or sit on it with bare, sweaty skin! Popler isn't really suited for outdoor applications as it will rot quickly unless it has a good preservative. John

It depends on what you are calling "poplar." There it yellow poplar (AKA tulip poplar, Liriodendron tulpifera). It is not rot resistant.
Cottonwood is a species of true poplar which is commonly used for heavy equipment trailers. If treated with used engine oil it will prevent rotting, and that wood is very durable.

I didn't realize there were other varieties. This was tulip poplar from the sawmill. There were a lot of hay-racks that were painted with grain oil every fall, thin the oil with diesel fuel to make it soak in better. Probably frowned on (creosote too) today.

Coat the wood liberally with a 50/50 mix of linseed oil and turpentine. Let it fully soak in and dry for at least a month.

Then paint the boards with oil based primer and let dry for a week. Apply two coats of the paint of your choice - like porch paint.

You must have a different species of Cottonwood there. The stuff up here (we call it Cottonweed) isn't even good for firewood. It's brittle and branches break off just from snow accumulating on them. There's no way I'd try and make bed wood out of it. The fuzz covered seeds blow everywhere and the pods dropping on a car will ruin the paint.

Populus deltoides. Eastern cottonwood. Likely different than your "popple" or "quakey" trees. Eastern cottonwood trees reach an immense height and diameter.
The name cottonwood refers to the way the wood fibers stay together, making for a durable board for a big trailer. I certainly wouldn't recommend it for our trucks.

Tulip poplar has a tendency to shrink dramatically after milling. Needs to be completely dry before cutting to size. It is straight grained and as usable as southern yellow pine, just don't let it get wet.

That's one advantage of Southern Yellow Pine. It has a lot of resin in it that acts sort of like a self waterproofing agent.

The best is the stuff from out west, Ponderosa pine.

An option for guys in the Pacific Northwest is Alaska Yellow Cedar.

From Wikipedia. "Due to its slow growth it is hard and, like other cypress woods, it is durable; it therefore offers good dimensional stability and is resistant to weather, insects, and contact with soil. It works easily with hand or machine tools, turning and carving quite well."

The key to southern yellow pine resiliency back when these trucks were made was the availability of old growth trees. These trees were slow growing due to stiff competition for sunlight in unthinned natural conditions. This resulted in many more growth rings per inch in diameter than what our modern plantation pines have. Tighter growth rings results in more resin in the boards thus less prone to rot.

Yep. My last house was built entirely out of old growth SYP in the 1920s here in Atlanta.

I counted over 200 rings in a section of 4x6 framing I removed. The tree was probably 500 years old or more.

The 1x8 clapboard siding was so tight and full of resin you had to pre-drill it to use nails, and screws were even tough to get into it. No rot or termites anywhere. That stuff was harder than oak.