The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed Bed Strips

Did the original metal bed strips between the wood come stock black in color?
How about the angled ones that attached to the panel and wood?
Thanks!

Jon

From what I have seen, the wood and the strips were painted black, the angle strips were body color. Someone will correct me if I am wrong. I am planning on painting my bed wood with POR 15 then exterior black latex. Probably do the strips as well even though they are stainless.

What jomichael describes is correct. I'll probably be painting the wood and stainless strips for my 54 pickup just as jomichael describes (with a semigloss black finish coat).

Tim

i am painting the strips black but putting watco oil on the wood--not stock but you can see the grain.

Concur, the angle strips are tack welded to the sides, which were of course painted the body color. I believe even in some cases the box Wood and strips were installed separate and prepainted black. The wood had just a wash coat of black on it but the strips were probably painted with gloss enamel. Logic being that the under hood items that didn’t show were semi-gloss black finish from just being e-coated and the bed strips were exterior where they could be seen so they would have been gloss Dulux like the black rims, black tail light, mirror and license brackets.
DG

OK, Denny,

I'll go with the same gloss black (acrylic urethane) that will be used on the running boards, the tail lamps, the mirror arms, the license brackets, and bed-side spare-tire mount. The five rims are already powder-coated black (but will not be seen behind the full-size wheel covers).

I used MINWAX Ebony stain covered with MINWAX HELMSMAN spar urethane varnish on bed boards the last time but I am going to paint them this time.

Thanks,
Tim

My new bed strips are painted gloss black and I used polished stainless bolts. The wood has 6 coats of Urethane exterior grade spar varnish even though it's not as stock equipment I think it looks great.

I was under the impression that the wood, strips, and cross sills were all bolted together and then sprayed with a thin coat of gloss black enamel, which soaked into the wood, yielding glossy strips but more semi-gloss wood. At least that's how it appears to have been done on my truck.

On my 57 bed I bought oak wood strips. When the truck is painted it will be the original brewster green.
What stain would you guys recommend that would look good with that combination? I have the stainless steel strips.

Thanks!

Jon

a light oak stain and it will yellow just a bit over some time. I would contrast well with the green.

King, you may be correct in your observation. The wood being Southern Yellow Pine would be quite porous and would have soaked up the enamel even with a heavy application of paint. In a case like that the enamel would remain glossy on the strips and the wood would appear to be flat. I doubt if they applied any more then one quick heavy coat of enamel to the bed wood. At first glance the bottom of my floor doesn’t appear to have any paint on it. I will know more when I get to the disassembly or the bed.

Since I haven’t had my bed apart yet I’m not sure what the autopsy will show. But you can be assured that I’ll report what I find since it has the original box, bed wood and strips still and other than the grain on the top side being blistered up it’s still in good to very good condition.

However, all that being said, when I look at the floor of the bed it could not have been pre-assembled and installed on the truck first. They would not have been able to drop the box in place over the pre-mounted floor because of the flanges at the bottom of the box sides and the rear sill. The pre-assembled floor could not be dropped in from the top of the box because of the angles that are spot welded to the box sides. But it does look like the floor as a painted assembly could have been slid in from the front of the completed box, then bolted to the box and finally the whole unit dropped onto the frame.

All of this is archeological in nature since we’ve never been able to find anyone that actually worked in the GM truck assembly plants in the early 50’s. Also, other than a handful of pictures floating around, there appears to be no other documentation of how the trucks were assembled. So all we can do is record as many observations as we can while dismantling the trucks and make a logical guess as to the sequence of production. Even though I have no intention of ever building a show quality truck myself, as some of you may have noticed, this is one of the phases of restoration that really holds my interest in these AD trucks.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

But even if you slid it in from the front the front bed panel would get in the way and have to be removed. So I guess the wood and strips would have to be individually installed last and the bed would have to be entirely assemble before it was installed on the frame.
Not even any old photos of truck boxes are around?
I look forward to hearing about your observations, as I too want an authentically restored truck to drive around and not just trailer to shows.

Denny, you can handily tell the paint sequence when you disassemble. Check under the bolt heads in the strips and angles and offset washers for paint, and check under the strips and angles and offset washers for paint on the wood. Those protected areas should reveal the mystery on most any original truck. Some years had the carriage bolts pressed into the bed strips and some years had the angle bolts welded to the angles. Those strips were probably painted with the bolts. GM did sell the boards separately for many years and those boards had a somewhat transparent black color all over. We do not know what the coating was.

Mar-Ktech

I plan to show my truck in a stock competition. I bought stainless steel strips from Mar-K with oak wood. If I hear right, pine was original.
How much would judges take into consideration if I did not use the pine and steel strips? Would they dock me if the bed wood is stained and not painted the enamel black?

Thank you!

When I tore down my 51 bed, it was easy to tell that the wood floor was installed and the entire bed assembled before the Forester green exterior color was applied to the bed sheetmetal. It appeared that the wood floor was assembled as a unit, then the bed sheetmetal was assembled around it, then painted green. The inner bed sides below the angle strips, inner rear cross sill, and inner front panel below the wood was still in black e-coat primer.

Bob

Good report buddy, I've seen Bob's truck and it's already a beauty and about ready for the show circuit, it’s much too nice to drive on the street. Bob is very meticulous about the correctness of his restoration and I would credit this report as being very accurate.
My tear down is a ways off but I will do the autopsy in detail when the time comes.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

This is what my investigation turned up: Under the bed strip heads there was no paint, just rust, however the strips were in pretty poor shape(rusted thru in some areas) so I can't be sure of anything. The top face of the wood is too beaten and weathered to tell anything. However the underside of the wood was in absolutely perfect shape and had no paint whatsoever. It was obviously treated. The wood surface on top that was protected by the bed strips also was in great shape and looked just like the bottom-no paint. Underneath the offset washers was a black surface coating that *might* be paint. This is what led me to believe that the floor was assembled and sprayed(but not the bottom). Here is what the bottom looks like. There is very little evidence that any of the wood ever even was black on my truck.

Bob (and/or Denny),

e-coat primer? Does this refer to the black primer that was used by the factory? e-coat has been around six the 1930s but it seems that it might not have been used in automobiles until the 60s. The black primer sure looks like e-coat - it might not stop rust but it sure is hard to remove from non-rusted metal.

"It appeared that the wood floor was assembled as a unit, then the bed sheetmetal was assembled around it, then painted green."

Do you think that the bed boards and bed strips were masked-off before the bed sheet metal was painted?

Thanks,
Tim

Tim,
Yeah, I was just referring to that black primer the factory used on everything.
They must have masked or used some sort of cover when painting the sheet metal. Even though I painted my boards black, I'm still not 100% sure that my original wood wasn't painted green along with the sheetmetal. There are some very slight traces of a dark green paint on my original wood, but it's really hard to tell if it's original or a P.O. repaint. I've heard others claim their wood was body color, and it may well have been, different assembly plants may have had different methods. I bought a new Chevy stepside in 1980 and its bedwood was body color.
Also, the bottom of the boards had no paint, but did appear to have been treated.

Bob

You prompted me to look into the history of e-coating a bit and from what I've found in my brief search was the it really wasn't used as you mentioned Tim till the 60's with Ford being the first one to use it.
So that leaves us with a question of what was the primer that the GM parts were coated with in the 50's? I worked for Chevy as a parts man starting in 1959 and the attic of the Chevy garage above the parts room was filled with new black sheet metal parts for our body shop customers. So if this wasn't e-coated just what was it? I had heard at one time that the parts were dipped in a primer after manufacture. I sure wish I know a chemist that could do an analysis of the coating and tell us what it was.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny,

Since e-coating was invented earlier, I did not know if someone knew about it being used by GM earlier.

http://www.clearclad.com/clearclad_resources/ecoat.htm

http://www2.dupont.com/Automotive/e...hatiselectrocoat/historyElectrocoat.html

Fully assembled bodies were supposedly not e-coated until the 60s. However, I have seen factory assembly-line photos of black-coated fenders being attached to unprimered bodies (GM Advance-Design/New-Design).

I'd also like to know what primer was used (the old "inquiring mind" thing, I guess).

Tim

OOOK, give me the short story of just what e-coating is. I have an inquiring mind to!
Thanks, and I"m sure I'm not the only one in the dark here
am I??

Alvin, e-coat was the electro deposition epoxy or acrylic primer that the auto manufacturers started using in the 60's. From what I’ve read it had been used outside of the auto industry for quite sometime before they started using it. If you've ever bought a body part, frame part or under hood part that was a semi-gloss black from an auto dealership in the last half decade it was probably e-coated. Roughly a decade or so ago a lot of the parts started showing up powder coated.
I was under the impression that they were using e-coat on automotive parts in the 50’s also but from what I’ve found by digging into it the last few days, it wasn’t until the very late 50’s to early 60’s that Ford did the pioneering work on it and by the mid 60’s it had become the standard.
I believe the earlier primers were dipped but I haven’t been able to find enough history to back that up. It only makes sense that the small component parts could be rapidly coated by running the production line down through a dip tank. I do know that this was a later practice for the entire body at some plants. I’ve often noticed drips and sags on lots of NOS parts that I’ve seem. I’m not sure what type of primer was being applied, it had to be compatible with lacquer and enamel. I suppose the black color was chosen because it hides the dirt and scratches and the parts stored better. A white, gray or red primer would not have stored well and would have shown every mark. Also it would not have presented itself very well to a customer.
This is some interesting reading if anyone is interested in delving into it a bit deeper. http://cpm.ndsu.nodak.edu/croll/HistoryofPaintSGC.pdf
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Thank you Denny. At least I now know more than I did.

Does anyone have photos of what the beds looked like in the 50's?
How about brochures from that time?
I have one that compares the Ford bed to the Chevy beds.
All it says is:
"A floor of seasoned hardwood planks held by flush-type, steel skid strips which are bolted to sills. This feature permits planks to expand or contract according to the weather. And, all joints are protected against wheel splash."

Another thought, how about the panel trucks? I would think they were treat the same way and would have held up to time better and might give us an idea of how they were?? Any thoughts?

Jon

my 1952 panel has a ONE piece plywood floor in it... but others did have the boards.
There is a thread in one of the forums here currently discussing the bed wood and how it was painted.

i work with stainless everyday n lased my own strips, and i got my inside the box in stainless with the corner angle out of carbon steel paint bright yellow with light stain, yellow pine bed boards with the yellow color truck, you need sun glasses when sun shines on it, and what a crowed pleaser that is! wow.....mick