Stovebolt.com Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed AD truck hardware finish

When leaving the factory floor, did the hardware in the AD truck beds receive the black finish just like the bed wood, or were the bolt heads and washers left exposed in their natural finish? It is my understanding that the rails between the individual boards were black.

II'd be willing to bet that the bolts were painted galvanized steel. They'd rust pretty fast if they weren't. We know they weren't stainless.

If the bolts were galvanized or zinc plated, I'll bet they didn't go back and paint the fasteners. Galvanized fasteners weather pretty well. That's what the zinc does - protects the underlying steel from rusting. I don't plan on painting the fasteners when I put my wood (painted each plank black on all sides individually) in the bed. The bed strips are already painted black.

A fella on here had some pics of an absolute untouched immaculate original '49 1/2 ton GMC which showed that the bolts were painted black.
This truck wasn't his, but he took the time to take some amazing pictures of it that answered many, many questions about details of these trucks. One thing that I gleaned from his pics was where they used masking tape between the interior color and the exterior color.
It was not exactly where the exterior sheet metal met the door lock and hinge pillars. Close, but not exact.
Another thing was how the end of each beltline pinstripe had a rounded end wherever they began and ended.

Carl, did it show the bolts on the angle strips painted body color? Those were attached to the bedsides and then painted with the body. The wood would have then been installed, or would the box been masked and the wood (including strips and hardware) painted afterward?

There was also a post a few years ago of an original bed where the wood was painted the body color, IIRC. It would make sense that the hardware was painted also.

When I removed the 1/8 " steel plate from the bed of my 1954 Chevy Truck, it revealed that the bed rails, bed wood, bed bolts and angle plate were all painted ocean green. Even after 67 years there was still remnants of the green paint on some of the bed wood. It's my understanding that the painting of the bed to match the truck color only began in 1954. Prior to that the bed wood was a dark charcoal color. Although I have not yet found color pictures of earlier GM Trucks , it would make sense that the bed strips, bolts and angle plates match the bed wood in appearance and would be painted black. Again, I have no proof. The search begins....

Ron, Thanks for confirming I'm not crazy when I said I saw a post about bed wood being painted body color. It was your post about it that I recalled.

The question in my mind is whether the angle strips on older trucks would have been painted body color and THEN the prepainted wood installed with the other bed strips prepainted black and all the hardware left unpainted. It would make sense to me that painting would be done on both the wood and metal parts, and then the wood installed. But that's just a supposition on my part. My bed was too rusty to determine if that scheme was used.

I used Black Oxide bolts for the bed strips when I rebuilt my bed. Painted the perimeter bolts before install.

There has been good information shared here. My take away from it all is that the hardware in my '48 Chevy 1/2 ton truck should be black. Thanks!

That was my takeaway as well.