The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk what was the pupose of a wood bed?

Now, it's desirable to have a wood bed, because it's cool looking. But, back in the day, what was the purpose of buying a truck with a wood bed? What was the point in manufacturing a wood bedded truck? I'd think it'd be harder than just taking a piece of stamped steel and bolting it to fenders like with a metal bed, it's not as durable, it rots out really quickly, and it's subject to heat and chemicals. I wouldn't for the life of me see myself throwing lawn implements, manure or hay bales in the wood bed of my brand new truck, primarily because it could chip, dent or stain the wood. Was there something better about them, or was it just a look that manufacturers used?

The wood bed floor was a step in the evolution of the truck. Originally, the entire bed was wood, and was usually made by the owner. As technology improved, the bed sides were made of steel, but wood was kept for the floor.

It seems reasonable that the wooden floor was cheaper than steel. And until manufacturing improved, allowing the strength of a ribbed floor, wood was far lighter, which allowed more payload. Ad to that the "we've always done it that way" attitude, and you might have the answer.

Matt - got nothin to do w/ looks!! you mighta got the truck cuz you like the look, and you might think the wood bed "looks cool", but these were/are "workingmens trucks", made to do a job as well as possible at a reasonable price - original owners got these trucks to throw all kinda stuff into, including the items you mention, and mostly the wood held up longer than the rest of the truck!

wood beds are stronger than the steel beds in many cases - try pallet jacking a heavy load onto a steel bed and you'll find out how wimpy those stamped ribs are - wood bed can take it

Bill

The thing I see, is with my 67, half of the bed is rotted away, and the rest is so deteriorated that I wouldn't trust it with much more than 600 lbs (had about 650 on it this summer, I was terrified it'd break through). On the other hand, there's a 68 GMC 1/2 ton that's been in the same region all it's life with a steel bed. Aside from a few dents, there are 5 quarter-sized holes in the bed, and the rest is in really good shape. If I was going to buy a truck back then and it was going to be a farm truck, I'd pay the extra cash for a steel bed, simply by what I've seen with them now. It just seems to me that the steel beds last longer, look better longer, and would be cheaper and faster to manufacture, once the technology was up to it, like Fred mentioned.

steel beds really only started in 67 - could have either as option - I had a 67 w/ a steel bed and wished it was wood - next 67 I had did have wood - wood needs to be maintained is all, metal can be abused as much, like around here by oyster guys hauling bags of sea water wet oysters!

Bill

Without proper care, wood rots and metal rusts. The bed in my 52 is original, and solid. It has one small patch, placed there to keep the seed wheat from leaking out. And I've hauled a few loads of topsoil that tilted the scales in the 1.5 ton range.

It seems to me freight rides better on a wood bed. Less prone to shifting and scraping up frieght.

When I got my '70 C10 3 years ago it still had the original wood bed. Most of the rot was confined to upper and lower edges for about 2-3 inches and not all boards were affected. Not bad for 30 years of wear and tear. The metal strips were another story, most were rather cancerous.

I don't know how far steel bed go back in GMC but the 39 has an
original,strong steel bed. AND a step bumper made of d-plate

I've had two of these beds the second was a short bed that was perfect!

When I want wood I throw a sheet of ply down.

When I want to keep cargo from shiftin' I tie it down with a rope
straps or chains

Wood beds were cheap and easy

The reason for wood beds on trucks of old is still a reason there are wood floors in large commercial trucks and trailers, i.e. the BIG RIGS... ease of loading...
A wood floor does not bend, all else being equal, makind it easier, for a longer period, to enter and exit a vehicle with material handling equipment, like jacks and lift trucks... In addition a wood floor provided a means to secure the load... because you could literally "NAIL" the load in place... This method of securing a load is still in wide use today... Look at a flatbed trailer, for instance, and many times you'll see chocks or wood wedges nailed right to the floor... While still a need in the commercial world, the need died off in the "civilian" world, as it were.... Steel is easier to produce, easier to maintain, eventually the material costs became cheaper as well, thus easing the move over to steel floors....
Additionally, production wood floors, in small pickups and carryalls, were made of Southern Yellow Pine, not oak or maple, like we all install during rebuilds.... IT was real cheap, and REALLY durable, easy to nail to and able to take a real beating and still perform its job...in a day when trucks HAD TO WORK!!! not get groceries, or show off!!!
Pete

Matt, the wood floor was superior back then for one good reason, loose freight. Like Steamroller said, wood doesn't take a bend like steel. With a wood floor and steel runners to keep the shovel from grabing splinters, grain, coal, gravel and a lot of other loose materials could be scooped off. If it was a steel floor it would be dented, sagging between ribs and a [censored] to scoop off. Back when these trucks were made the ole scoop shovel was every where. I grew up with one in my hand. But as some one else said the old "we've always done it this way" probably kept the wood floor around longer than needed, in pick ups. Steel won out because the wood floor was much slower, and cost more to produce.

Open the doors on the latest semi-trailers and you will find wood, except for reefers. They use wood now for the same reason now as then. It don't take a bend. To make an alumium or steel floor that will resist bending is very expensive compared to wood. Most of these trailers have a good sized fork lift in them every time they load or unload. Even alumumm platform trailers have wood nailing strips, as some one else pointed out. The guys that bought these trucks way back then, bought what made their life easier, not prettier. Mike

Go look at the cheapest car hauler trailers and they will most likely have a wooden deck. It must still be the most economical material in cost vs servicability.

I still don't understand why they would be cheaper. When I"m looking at my boards, and the diagrams to cut new ones, you have to cut those doves in every one of the boards, if it's a fleetside, you have to cut around the wheel wells, and on top of that, you have to bolt it down with a LOT of fasteners. All this as opposed to taking a piece of steel, putting it in a bender, hititng a button, then welding it to the sides.

Matt, a steel floor is cheaper than a wood floor now days. But wood is stronger than steel for it's weight. If you build a steel floor that will stand up like a wood floor it will be HEAVY! And maybe more expensive. 50, 60 , 70, 80 years ago wood was plentiful and cheap. And back then the knowlage of how to work wood was common. Now things have switched around. You can find some one to make a steel floor any where. Finding some one who can make a wood floor like they did back then is a hell of a lot harder. Just finding the right wood to make a bed can be a real challenge now. Wood made sense back then. Today steel makes sense, unless you want the truck to look like it did back then. Mike

back when they were still making wood beds in pickups,a lot of guys preferred the wood floor.If you took care of them,soaking them about once a year with linseed oil they would last a long time.Both my classic pickups thge 55 and 72 have wood floors.Of course they are fixed up for looks now.One is done in oak the other in cherry.

While researching the bed for my '46 Chevy I discovered that Chevy switched from Oak to Yellow Pine in 1940(?) to cut costs. Both the oak and pine beds were painted black, not stained or coated to make them "shine". However, if I were restoring a '46 GMC -- you
guessed it -- I would need to install a steel
bed! In 1946, this was more expensive, and the GMC was a bit "pricier" GM model with a few more features.

Steamroller is right on the money about loads - I used to sell utility trailers and car haulers. A car goes fine on a steel-floored car hauler, but put anything else on it (like a skid loader, a farm tractor, or palletized cargo) and it will slide like crazy if there is any moisture on the trailer or tires! A very dangerous situation! A steel-floor car hauler may look cool, but is considerably more expensive to build and your lack of versatility in hauling loads severely hampers your ability to do much else except look good! A wood deck in a truck bed or a trailer is far superior in most hauling situations...Look at U-Haul trucks - wood decks!

Plus, when replacing wood in either situation, the expense is considerably less overall, especially since the cost of steel has gotten just plain stupid in the last year!

Well, I mainly bought this truck as a show-car. That is the main reason I bought one with a wood bed, as opposed to a steel one. I've seen people build these with wood beds, and they're absolutely beautiful, and that's what I'm going for. we have 3/4" oak planks (from a torn down deck), or I could go with a nice cherry wood (if I'm going to repaint it red, I might do the cherry and stain it so it brings out that red color more). WE also have a wood shop in our basement, so it won't be hard to cut the wood to specs, but it would be a whole lot easier to weld in a few metal patch panels than replace a whole bed like I"m going to have to do...

I don't much like steel beds--all my trucks but one had wood beds and the one with the steel bed use to fill up with water every time it rained--had to pull it up on an incline to drain it--got tiring--wood bed is better--tear it up--replace the plank.

I have the impression that cars and trucks were stored out of the weather when not in use, like in a garage, more so than what is done these days. My old friend who had an auto/truck repair shop that he opened in 1919 told me of how automobile paint durability improved over time until around the 1960's where a car could be left outside all of the time. In the '40's it was unwise to park you car in the sun, under a pecan tree, etc. Recommended storage was in a garage to prolong the life of the paint and I guess the wood in the pick up trucks too.
In this part of the country, an auto left out, uncovered, gets wet every day even if it's not raining. It's covered with dew every morning and doesn't dry off until the sun burns it off. My '46's paint is the same as when I got the truck three years ago since I store it out of the weather. A '55, 2nd series that I had, deteriorated badly in the same amount of time when I had no cover for it.
Jacques

All of my relatives that farmed in these parts ALWAYS shedded everything....including pickups and grain trucks. Amazing to see how much everyting was worth at auction in the mid 90's when all the old guard retired. Tractors bought new 1945 or 6 were still rust free. The wood in all of the truck beds was still good. I can't remember a time when my grandpa left his JD with anything attached out in the field....it always came home at the end of the day, regardless of how far away. My cuz still has his WD Allis that ruled the roost until he bought a JD in 58.

It was for stability of the cargo but the cargo they were thinking about was the farm to market cargo specifically "Livestock". If you've ever taken a 1400 lb. steer to market and had to stop fairly quick you'd find out real quick has fast 1400 lbs. will slide forward on steel. Farmers needed that wood to keep the steers from coming thru the back window.

Guys I shoveled grain out of many old wood bed pickups. Worse was wheat and oats, because it would lie lower than the metal strips, so a brooming was a must. Wood was always good except the beds that were not taken care of, ever run a scoop shovel and tear up a big ol splinter, the bed was to drie then.

I personally think wood was plentiful, steel was harder to machine back then, and then the wars took all steel that was made during those times.
Also back then (i think) the same planking machines were easier to set up all you did was change depth and length.

popcorn The Truth is Out There (Boy a big ol bull would still bust his [censored] if you stopped to fast and hehee that's because you always threw straw on the floor)

Yeah, steel didn't grow on trees you know.

<Matt those 3/4 oak planks should work very nice.The floor in my 72 is oak and it looks great.My 55 is done in cherry.I didnt stain it.I used about 5 coats of spar urethane to finish it.It really shines.

Dont know what happened to the last post.Matt those 3/4 oak planks should work very nice.My 72 has an oak floor,it looks good.I used cherry on my 55.I didnt stain it,I used about 5 coats of spar urethane.it really shines.

Thanks Dale. Do you have any photos of your cherry bed? I'd really like to use a dark wood, preferably with a red tint to it. Like I said, unless it's balsa wood or something (heh heh) I really don't care how soft the wood is since the most work it's going to be getting is a couple folding chairs and a cooler in the back for drive-in movies.

Matt,I will have my wife take a picture of it and post it,meanwhile there is a pic of my 72 oak bed in the gallery. Dale

Malaysian hardwood ........... mmmmmmmm

Matt I havent forgotten you.My wife took som pix of the cherry wood bed with her digital camera.As soon as she gets time she will post them. Dale

duh moment...how do you upload pix to this forum?

Simple answer; you don't.

You have to upload your pictures to some host on the net somewhere and then use the image tag or url tag to either display the image in a post or display a link to the image in a post.

I know no one ever reads them , but you might want to read this Stovebolt FAQ , How Do I Post Pictures in the Forum?
Also, be sure to follow the link to Norselander's how-to page that is included as part of the above FAQ.

THX

Another possibility for a reason for having a wooden bed in a p/u truck is that it made additions to the bed easier for the those who changed the bed configuration to better suit their needs. Farmers around here still add tool boxes, canopies to shelter field hands riding in the back, fuel tanks, etc, to their trucks.
Wood is more, "forgiving", when drilling holes. It also allows common fasteners like screws & nails to be used used by the end user to attach add-ons to a truck bed. It's a lot easier for most folks to work with than a steel bed.
Also, auto makers didn't have dies large enough to produce one piece steel bed floors until the mid or late 1930's. That's why we don't see one piece steel roofs on autos until then, I think.
I guess the same question could be asked about vinyl tops on non-convertibles still being used today. It continued making the appearance of an auto something a little, "sporty", compared to a regular hard-top.

You can hide a lot of hail damage with a Landau top, and all of the rest of the panels are easy to replace. That's why you still see them in the south. If you go to buy a new car that has a Landau top that didn't have one from the factory, run away.