I know this was awhile ago. Randy, what did you do about the sheet of ply being 48 wide and the bed being 49? Did you just leave a 1/2 gap at the edges?

 

Nope...I went with Wormy Maple.

 

My old picture disappeared, so here it is again. If you cut it into planks then you can avoid a narrow strip on the edges. The bed strips sit in a rabbeted groove but their tops stick up above the wood.

 

I also used a steel bed floor as I planned to use mine as a truck . I had the doner bed so it was free. No holes ,no rot, no splinters.

 

The boards on my bed were in bad shape so I went with a sheet of Oak Plywood as a "temporary" fix. So far it is holding up well and looks decent. I did make it so the strips would fit flush with the wood just as if it were Oak planks. Some day I plan on replacing it with oak bedwood but for now it serves the purpose and most people looking at cannot tell it is plywood.

 

That's actually why I used plywood. I couldn't see scraping up $300 (at the time) oak. With $30 worth of plywood, I don't cry if it gets scraped.

 

update on my earlier post, kenny's pine with 5 coats of spar varnish, all 6 sides has been in seasonal use: spring, summer, fall, as a real truck. most of the wood has turned black just like i would have expected with oak, but not so much pine. i think i'd do an ax racer tung oil treatment if i had it to do over again.

 

Thanks for the pic. It makes it much clearer now how it all goes together. I know the bed wood is 3/4 thick.
Is there enough room to slide 1" thick wood in there.?
I was thinking of using some pressure treated deck lumber. I could rip it to the right width and do the edges with a router. But to get it 3/4 think I think I'd need a planer... The wood I can get for free, so that's why I was thinking of going that route...
Also can anyone tell me what size carriage bolts are needed to bolt this all together. Looks like I'd need about 75 of them.