The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed looking for advice on drilling 51 chevy bedwood

I bought a kit but no instructions I see the side boards attach to the frame, but should I clamp the boards together then drill thru the holes in the bed strips? Another question is how many cross sills are there

The holes in the rear sill will give you the board spacing. There are several different board widths but use what fits between the holes on the rear sill since this is not movable like the crossmembers. The two boards that fit under the angle strips go in first and a hole is drilled through them at each crossmember end hole so both the bed sides and crossmembers are supported by these two side boards. Square the bed diagonally and lay the rest of the boards in place; they DO NOT fit tight together. Lay your strips in and if you have a horse shoe in your butt the holes will align with the holes in the crossmembers. There is a front and rear to the strips with the two closer spaced holes going towards the front. When everything is laid in place if the holes in the crossmembers don't line up--drill new ones.

I just bought a complete bed w/wood from mar-k. I have the dircetions for drilling the boards if you want a copy of them. Just send me your address & I'll send you a copy in the mail. Later Rick

Slick, my e-mail addresss is [email protected]

thanks jf

Hello Slick any chance of also getting those direction. My e-mail is [email protected]

Thanks Fred

There are lots of instructions on our website for how to make wood boards to fit your bed, how the bed-to-frame mouting is done, how to drill mounting holes and much more. Take a look here:
http://www.mar-k.com/installation_hints.html

Hope this helps.

I laid out all the wood and strips, squared everything up, then drilled a small hole up from the bottom of the truck through the sills and into the wood. Not sure if yours have those offset washers like my 55, but that was done with a Forstner bit and steady hands.

Get out the old tape measure and get to work.

Without having a milling machine it would be next to impossible to form the offset counter bore in the wood. If its not predrilled etc you paid way too much. Minds well hit up a local lumber store if thats the case.

No need for a milling machine to form the offset bore. As jomichael pointed out, a readily available Forstner bit is made for this type of job. I would hesitate to do it freehand with a drill but in a drill press with a stop this is very easy to do and the bit should only coast a few dollars.

Chuck