The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed Where I got to today

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It ain't perfect, but I feel pretty good about it!

CJ

It looks great. I am in the process of deciding what to do with the bed of my '52.

Looks real nice. Good work on the wood.

Real nice for sure. Do you dare load anything on it? Good job.

Don

The optical effect of the light colored wood is that the bed is much wider. Pretty cool.

As to loading stuff, I'll whimper once when I put the first blemish to it, then it'll be my pickup again! It's nice to have a deck that won't pass, say, a bowling ball through a hole!

The fun of it was learning the process. I cut a bit too deep with my router on some of the later boards. Haven't quite figured out how the router shifted "up" in the table, but the bed is serviceable. I probably did something stupid.
I'd do a couple of things different next time, but mainly I'm pretty happy with how it went.

I've got a few more things yet to finish it off. Perhaps this weekend.

CJ

I just needed wood in the back of the Erwhipee truck to keep the rattling down and so I could put something back there. I bought construction lumber pine (had to go through a pile of boards to find good straight ones) and a dado blade. I used some PPG oil based deck treatment on the wood. I can't believe how nice it looks. I spent less than $50 at menards for 1x8's and 1x6's. The dado blade cost more than that.

Pine one-bys.....$50
new metal strips......$70
new carriage bolts from the hardware store with many left over for the next one...$45
I had some construction putty for the wheel wells laying around and some left over primer and paint for the edges.

Total cost was less than $170. My labor was fun and free.

My total came out at about 200 bucks using Pine 1x's from my local lumber store. I used some stain to bring the grain out, and topped it with a couple of coats of Helmsman.
The only trouble I had was with getting the cross members in right. I put the front one in backward.
The second support back from the cab didn't line up with the frame support holes. About an inch off. Hmmmm. Can't figure out why. The holes in the bed line up with the holes in the strips... Weird. Anybody else run into that? Aren't the supports symetrical?

CJ

I think it is the third large cross member from the front that is different from the rest on the longbed. I know that putting in the wood can be a lengthy and tedious process. The hard part for me was keeping the bed square while I tightened the boards up. I didn't have any help, so I placed mine upright so the tailgate was up near the ceiling. Then I used a tiedown strap to pull the side over one direction till square. I put all the boards and metal strips in with all the bolts (loose) Then I used some winch straps to pull the sides of the box together to make it as tight fitting as possible before tightening it up. It's not perfect, but the next one will be better easier.

Very nice job on the wood ...LOOKS GREAT !