The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts New Bed Decking

I finally replaced the bed decking on my '48 Chevy 2 Ton. After using it with those old rotten boards for the last 7 months I'm glad to have brand new wood that I won't step through or loose bouncing down the highway.

I used 1-3/4" x 12" paralam (microlam). It's basically thick plywood they use for floor joists and such. I attached it similar to how pickups are done with the metal strips. Except that I didn't use the formed strips. Instead I used 3/16" x 1-1/2" flatbar held down with countersunk allenhead bolts. The strips are rabbited into the paralam just a bit lower than the top of the wood and so the wood is the highest point.

I really like how it turned out and I like the paralam material, it's not going to split or have knots fall out leaving big holes to patch. It's going to be interesting to see how it holds up to daily use.

Here are a few pictures: http://good-times.webshots.com/album/560242954LrhTOd

Paul.

Looks good, Paul. Now you'll have to paint the bed steel to match the strips, or vice versa. See, that's the problem with fixin things. Once you start, it never stops.

It fits very nicely. And one thing always leads to another...

Nice, and timely of you to do it right now. I'm about a month away from putting in my decking on my flatbed as well. I am also considering this microlam material. VERY STRONG.

While your metal strips look super sharp, I think I'm going a different route. I plan to rabbit some grooves in the edges of the boards and polyurethane glue them together with a filler strip (1/2" thick x 2" wide white oak?). I'll then lag screw the wood to the frame.

I was considering using some of that paint on bed liner materail (like Rhino liner). Anybody done that? Thoughts?

Thanks for the compliments guys, I appreciate the feed back. Jhaa_lives it's cool that you're thinking of using the same kind material. One thought to consider regarding joining the pieces together, it's amazing how much wood shrinks and expands, even ply material like the paralam. So I think your idea will work good, but I would glue only one side of the strip into the paralam and let the other side float. I'm thinking that if you glue both sides into the paralam the strip will eventualy split. That's one reason I used the metal strips, so the paralam was held down securely and contained, but could also move around due to expansion, flexing, etc. When my Dad and I replaced the decking on his '64 GMC farm truck we used two layers of 1" x 6" clear fir shiplap. We glued and screwed the two layers together so the whole deck was basically one solid board. It was fine for a while, but eventually it cracked because of expansion and contraction. It would have been better to only screw the two layers together, so the top layer could move on the bottom layer and vice versa. Good luck and I hope to see some pictures soon. Paul.