Well, I haven't posted any new fabrication projects here in a while so I thought I would throw a few pictures on here of the running boards that I built. I had a set of Fairlane glass boards that had the stock ribs in them and after mocking them up on the truck, I decided that they didn't have the right look for the style of my truck. I threw the question out on this forum over a year ago for ideas on building running boards and there were several responses that helped me make up my mind. I wanted smooth boards with cutouts in the sides for rectangular exhaust tips with smooth blended openings.

Well.....this is what I came up with.........





Well not really! This was my mockup in masonite and wood to get the shape I wanted and also to serve as a pattern to make my cuts in steel. I had my local sheet metal shop bend up a couple of 90's in my blanks and I went to work on them. Laid out my patterns and cut them out. By the way this metal is some that was left over from my original metal purchase that I built my bed and my tailgate from. Still less than $500 in all of it.








A few spot welds, some hammers and dollies and some more gentle persuasion from a BFH and I had the general shape.







Some of you may have seen some of this from another site and I am trying to throw in some details that I didn't post there.
More to follow........

Drewski

 

Very nice work! I'm planning on exhaust cutouts in the running boards of my F1 as well. Can't wait to see how yours look. Thanks for the pics.

 

That is nice work. What gauge sheet metal are you working with?

 

I agree, nice work! overall look flows well!

Question for you, and it might be kind of a dumb question. When fabbing a running board like this, does the board just mount to the factory L brackets with the normal bolts or is there a supporting rib underneath the sheetmetal that adds strength and provides a place for the board to mount to the L bracket? Curious cause I like the look and building a set is within the realm of my skillz.....
curious as to what you're going to do.

jason

 

Very necely done!! Great fabrication skills.

Thanks for taking the time to post the pics and give us some details.

Bobby

 

very nice
what is the finish going to be?

 

Andrew,that is really nice work.

 

That's beechin'! I love custom fab work.

 

Looks awsome, you got some great skills there.

 

I always like opening your links. There's always some cool fabrication from the darkside.

 

Will they be in production soon, for 51s ? A work of art !!

 

lookin great drew...keep it up

 

Excellent metalwork,can't wait for the finished product.You should go into the runningboard business.

 

Back on this morning with a time out for a brief rant...............

I got up early this morning, got a fire going in the fireplace, made coffee and sat down to add some photos to this thread. I was pleasantly surprised at the interest in the running boards. Sooooooooooo............. I spent a little time to answer your questions and starting adding new photos. When I went to preview my post I find that I'm no longer logged in so I log in thinking that I can return to my unfinished post like I can on any other website and guess what I can't get back to all the work that I had previously done and none of my history would show what I had done. I don't know why this site has to be so hard to work with. The search doesn't always work for me, the gallery gives me fits, and it takes forever navigating from page to page. So I'm pretty aggravated after spending about an hour setting up my post only to lose it. If any of you old timers with this forum have any suggestions, I'm all ears. I'm not a computer guru, I just know this site presents me with some different challenges. I come back here because I love the look of the old ford trucks, I'm not a brand loyal individual. This site gives allows me to see a lot of these old ford trucks and you purist tolerate those of us that cut'em up. Soooo I keep coming back......Now I'm gonna take two aspirin and go fix a flat on my Massey and I'll try it again later.

Drewski

 

Yep, if you take too long the post will be lost, there is no save feature.

But now that you can edit any post, I save and edit to add more info later

Sam