The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed one ton bed made from TREX decking

I built a deck on my house a few years ago and bought a ton and a half of TREX deck boards off the clearance rack at Home
Depot. This stuff has been sitting out in the weather since so I just spent the day building my bed out of the decking material. It is too thick for a clean install so I had to dado 1/4" at each cross sill. It looks great but I don't know how well it will hold up. I am sure it would be perfect forever if I never intended to put anything in the truck. Has anybody used this stuff in a working truck?

I don't know why it wouldn't last. TREX is vey tough. Did you dado for the skid ribs too. Could you post a pic? This might be the way I might choose for my 3100 1/2T as it's user, not a show queen.

I haven't yet, but I will when I get new bed strips from Mar-K. None of the holes in the cross sills will line up with the edges of the 1x6 boards so I will have to drill new holes 32 of them if I count right. The Trex is about 7/8" to 1" thick depending on which one you measure so that is the reason for the 1/4" dado on the undersides. I would guess if you had a planer you could plane them to the required 3/4" thickness. Here are a couple of cramped quarters shots.
trex1
trex2

Thank you for the pics. I like the color look. I don't know if planning a composite would be good thing to do. I would think it's possible to gum up the blade. Do you think it's feasible to attach the sills from the underside using self taping screws of the appropriate size rather then drilling holes? From building your deck,I'm sure you realize how TREX grabs the deck screws. It's almost impossible to remove them once seated so your truck bed will tighten up too.

I like how that looks.

I've thought about doing the same thing under the boom of my '54 if I take the flatbed off and go with a standard bed.

That's a very good point Drew. I'll grab some short screws at the hardware on my way home and try that out. It would look good without the bed strips.

BTW it toasted two router bits just doing the dados so you are probably right about the planer getting ruined.

Successive passes through a table saw set to wider and wider increments will also give you a dado.(doing this for the cross sills will be a pain I bet) Either that, or you could just cut the dado's for the bed strips deeper. I think this could be done easier with two passes over the table saw - one for depth, and one for width. It's time consuming, but will get the job done.

I think the bed strips are supposed to bear the weight of any load, so I don't know that cutting those areas deeper would be a good thing. It would expose the edges of the boards and would probably end up chipping them. The TREX is pretty tough but it may not take that much abuse.

a guy with an AD one ton came to a cruise in a while back and had the trex on his bed....looked nice but it didn't give me that warm and fuzzy feeling being I know how it should look...but as we say, to each his own. It did not look bad just didn't look "natural".

What about the span of the decking. You are 12" or 16" on center for floor joists. Cross sills are what ? 30/36" ??. I would think Trex would deflect over that span ?

It's warming up this weekend so I will get it screwed down and then try walking on it. I'll let you know but I think it will be plenty solid. Locally the RBD requires 24" max. on center for deck joists which is what I built my deck to. It is a little bouncy and if I had it to do over I would go to 16".

Ironically there is an interesting article in the current issue of Vintage Truck magazine.(Jan./Feb 2010; Vol. 17,No.6) that covers the installation of composite board bed wood. The first thing pointed out is increasing the number of cross sills. Check it out.

Home life got hectic and I didn't get anything done the past weekend. adding more cross sills should be fairly easy with some 2"x2" angle iron. I don't plan on hauling much, maybe my ATV or garden tractor. I'll document what I end up doing and post it.

Yes, the article writer was kinda doing it for the same reason, hauling wood,mulch,etc. He bought a complete new bed from Mar-K and used just 2 extra sills. He decided to create a steel box frame over the center area where the frame humps over the rear axle. Pretty simple and solid. He used 9/16" thick (to save weight) product named Timber Tech. It has a really nice wood like appearance and also comes in 1" thickness.

I will have to check out that magazine article. That sounds like what I am considering for my '53 Chevy 6400.

I never did get around to adding any cross support. I have hauled one ton pallets of wood pellets twice so far and at this point I don't think the extra support is needed. My plan is to leave well enough alone.

Just saw your post. I had to use trex on my covered porch because the end sills kept rotting out, even the pressure treated stuff. You will find on a hot day that stuff will grow and sag. If it does, then you can put in extra braces. It just doesn't have the strength over spans like dimensional lumber does.