The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed Beds: any original thinking out there?

Next truck I see with one of those crummy plasticky-looking shiny wood beds, I'll puke on it. Has anyone got pix of more original solutions, pref. installed on an AD, well-crafted in steel or synthetic materials (kevlar?) or diamond-plate (aluminum or steel) or whatever? Thanks!

Ol Skool Rodz (January issue I think, might be newer) has an AD rat rod truck which has a diamond plate bed. Looks nice from far - no detail shots.

I saw a guy doing just that at a car show last summer. Can't remember the name. He was making his own beds from scratch out of aluminum and they looked great. I'll see if I can find him and post again. Oh, and welcome back Senior Pants!

Check this link http://customclassictrucks.com/howto/7020/ I don't know if the floor supplier is still in business but it is not rocket science. Any sheet metal shop could do it in aluminum, steel, stainless, or your choice.

Mar-Ktech

Thank you gentlemen, much appreciate the helpful input.

And thanks for the words of welcome, Shipwright. Good of you .

BTW, is your Ruby's visor all made of aluminium (sorry, these danged limey spelling habits die hard)? I kinda like the look. Would like to find something similar, maybe not extending quite so far forward, to span the one-piece windshield on the 54. Maybe another item to have fabricated when I win the Lottery.

My visor is a Charles Peckat Comet Skyshield. I believe it's a universal type aftermarket item so it will need some massaging to fit. The ends and center are S/S and the panels are Aluminum. This visor is adjustable but, the way the end brackets are shaped, you are limited to a small area of the door arch on where you can mount it. I had to bend the mounting bracket to get it back as far as I did.
After reading your first post again, I think I may have misunderstood your meaning about the bed. I thought you were talking about the entire bed not just the bed floor. Anywho, here's a link to the whole aluminum bed on EbaY

It's not exactly what you wanted but I have been thinking of staining my bed wood with a tinted stain so that it showed up blue, red, or orange.

I will be painting the truck soon and the wife wants blue or red. I thought having the bed wood stained blue and then spar varnished would be different. I want to repaint her orange and do the bed wood in an orange stain and spar varnished.

heck, I just use a horse trailer pad in mine over the wood,,works for me,,, but it isn't shinny..Fred

How about a late model ribbed steel floor in your early truck. I don't think i've seen many of those in my travels.

I've seen diamond plate, diamond plate planks, aluminum, aluminum planks, steel plate, steel ribbed (using replacement panels for late models), plastic-wood, plastic-see thru, expanded metal (wire mesh), plywood, chip-board, wood on a diagonal, parquet and steel grate. I kind of liked the plastic lined swimming pool version I saw.

You can put in whatever floats your boat.

How's this for you? I just put it up in the the Gallery.

[img]http://www.stovebolt.com/gallery/images/maher_shawn_1946b.jpg[/img]

Shawn says: Next, I started on the bed. My brother's work gave him a big steel shelf and some sheets of sheet metal so I used that to make the box and running boards. Then I used the floor from a 1980's Chevy pick up I had. I had to do a lot of cutting and welding to make it fit. My friend has a '41 Chevy that he got fiberglass fenders for so he gave me his metal front fenders. I made them into back fenders for my truck.

Shawn said feel free to post some questions. He'll be glad to elaborate on what he did.

Looks pretty neat.

Peg

More info from Shawn:

Here's how I decided on a color for my truck, and how I wanted to make the box. I carved a model out of wood before I started on the truck so i could decide on how I wanted it too look. I painted it about four different colors before I decided on the peper gray and black.

Has anyone used teak? Teak has a high oil and silica content. It would be expensive, but would last a long time.

My best friend is a restoration painter for high end estate homes. He and his boss said they want to make my bed using "stressed" wood. Apparently, millionaires pay them thousands of dollars to put their wood in burlap sacks and beat the s*&t out of it with chains and sticks...

called "distressed" - lotsa folks pay big bucks for "barn boards" for the faded, worn, checked look of old farm buildings - distressing also can involve surface scorching w/ a butane torch, then giving the board a good wire brushing and burnishing w/ very fine sandpaper

distressing can look nice as decoration, but I don't think it'd add much to the longevity of yer bed!

Bill

Hell, I just slapped old barn wood in mine from a building I tore down last summer.

[img]http://www.oldtruckstuff.com/mytrucks/bed1.gif[/img]

Holds 30 bales of hay just fine, and I won't have a stroke if I scratch it up.

The '41 front fenders on the back of that truck looks pretty good!

I'm thinking about using pine, and painting it flat black, just like it left the factory. You don't see too many done that way anymore...

mark.
'51 KY 3100

Thanks gang. And thanks for posting Shawn's ride, Peg. Cool fenders and I like what he did with the bed. (But to my mind Frank's 46 has the best look for a Deco! Sorry to see he intends painting it .)

Sorry guys I do not have a pic but here is what I did...I milled up some ipea Hawaian walnut but cheap then coated it with pentafin. This wood will last longer than most of us. If you dont like the walnut look just let it age. Takes on a grey just like the orig .pine but will last and last and last . with ss strips it really looks sharp cause it dont look at all like oak.