I am preparing the bed wood for my "53 F100 restoration. I have some bed wood information from Mid Fifty that calls out rabbet depths and widths and some drilling locations. But, this is based on the 5 1/2" bed wood boards that they provide. Can anyone direct me to a more detailed description?

 

Search "53 F100 bed wood schematic" and you will find several posts and links to what you are seeking.

 

Go to George Hartman's web page called 'Earl's World' on Club FTE. Do a search on FTE and it will come up. Then click on Reference Material, scroll way down and you will see a diagram and specs.

 

Thanks, Abe. Found it. It's exactly what I was looking for.

 

The MF dimensions are based on 5 1/2" wide boards, not because it's what they sell, it's because that's the actual width of a standard (X) x 6 board. It's an old way of specifying the size of a piece of lumber by the actual size of the rough cut green board cut from the log, not the finished size. Boards were sold by the saw mill this way, not dried or finished. Today we want nice boards all smoothed on 4 sides and cut to the same size, so the processor takes the green board and first dries it, where the board shrinks significantly as the water is removed. Then the dried board is run thru machines that plane off the rough cut surface on all 4 sides and make the board a standard size. The shrinkage and smoothing removes wood reducing the board's actual size, but the original (nominal) size designation stays with it for simplicity. Hence a (nominal) 2 x 4 at your local lumber yard actually measures 1 1/2" x 3 1/2", a (nominal) 1 x 6 actually measures 3/4" x 5 1/2".