I have a while to think about putting my truck back together, and have been kicking around different ideas for replacing the bed in my '62 stepside. Has anyone replaced their wood bed with something different than the usual oak kit?

 

Hey!

I haven't done any of this, but your choices need to keep in mind strength, hardness, and rot-resistance.

White oak is probably your best bet, but Ipe ("Eee-pay") is an exotic hardwood that is becoming quite common for exposed decking and it is hard and strong. Got a much redder coloring, something like mahogany. It is also usually cheaper than w.oak.

Black locust would also do really well, but it is very green in color and might look a bit funky.

Good luck - and post some pics when you are done!

 

I did a flatbed with p.t. yellow pine from The Home Depot for the floor and sides. You can use it and make it pretty, I was just going for funtional. If you are going for pretty, buy it long, let it dry out for at least a month, cut the cracks off, then sand and stain it. I have tried painting it before, stains works better.

 

Southern yellow pine makes a durable and good-looking bed. Make sure you seal the wood (any wood) on all sides after all the cutting and drilling is done. My bed rotted from 4 holes I drilled to mount a rack, and didn't varnish the holes. Either paint or UV resistant (spar) varnish. The best wood I know of for weather and rot resistance would be teak $$$$!

 

Hey!

Teak would be o.k. as a decorative, moisture resistant wood, but I wouldn't want to use it in a high-wear situation like a truck bed. Too soft. Besides, teak is running at nearly $40 a board-foot in our area! That's just rediculous money and I, personally, don't think it's especially attractive - compared with the other choices.

I would imagine you could get 5/4" w.oak for around $5.50 - $7.00 a B.F., Ipe might run you $4.00-$5.00/B.F. Good, heartwood yellow pine is (surprisingly) often much more expensive than that. Maybe around $10/b.f.

Of course, you can get treated SYP from a lumber yard for cheap, but remember, you are buying all sap wood, so it is the part that normally would be thrown away. Pressure treated wood is always the *sapwood* of southern yellow pine as it is the only part of the only commercially viable lumber that will accept the treatment chemicals. In fact, if you get a PT board with a bit of reddish section in it, that small discolored bit is a piece of heartwood that got "accidentally" included in the cut - it's red because it can't absorb the green-pigmented treatment chemicals.

I would reccommend against PT for long-term life and aesthetics. Remember that the treatment chemicals are all water-born. So, if you use them in a situation where they get routinely wet (like in a truck bed, or a deck floor, or any other exterior use) the chemical will wash out sooner rather than later. And then you are left with lumber cut from the (now unprotected) most insect/rot vulnerable part of the tree.

Further, now that the treatment chemicals have been changed from the old Copper-Chromium-Arsenate (CCA) formula for OSHA reasons, the new formula seems to be more of a surface treatment than ever. It also really tends to rub/brush/flake off and will NEVER be a good substrate for applying a finish to.

Good luck!

-Sam

 

Burmese Teak is definitely not a soft wood. I have never seen a carbide blade destroyed so fast as when cutting that stuff. The cockpit gunwales on my boat were capped with it, and it never wore a bit. It is very expensive, though.

 

The PO had used a sheet of T-11 or T-111 or whatever that exterior siding is called. Was pretty rotted thru the bolt holes and just plain ugly after years of hauling stuff. I was kind of kicking around using some of that plastic wood that is getting used for decking now. Some of it is pretty thick and seems to me that it would be impervious to anything I'd want to haul. I can appreciate a nice wood bed, but really don't want the problems they have to offer. Thanks for the inputs! I'll definately post pics, but will be a few months. Still working on the body.

 

Hey!

Well, I should have clarified my statements a little. Teak isn't soft when compared with most woods folks build stuff with these days. Harder than pine, poplar, western red cedar, spanish cedar, probably about as hard as the Phillipine "mahogany" that's available now. But it sure isn't hard/tough/strong like white oak, or just plain hard like Ipe. (Though individual pieces - and individual experience does vary a lot.) And it is certainly wicked expensive.

A lot of the exotics are really rough on tools. We spend more time sharpening and go through more tool blades on woods like Jatoba (Brazillian "Cherry"), Ipe, and any of the Rosewood species (though that's mostly turnings) than I would have belieived. Plane white oak all day long. Plane jatoba 30 minutes and go sharpen! Ugh. If you cross-cut many of these woods you can see glittery little mineral fragments in the end-grain pores. That stuff eats metal tool edges for breakfast.

I just picked up a dovetail router bit today that my partner used a while back to dovetail the ballister feet into a staircase with jatoba treads. I guess we never got it sharpened because it was burning trying to cut poplar.

Oh, yeah, and some folks are not happy breathing the saw dust.

-Sam

 

He used T-111 siding as deck material? That has to set some kind of new standard for LOW. I don't know anything about the plastic woods - but I would keep your exhaust pipes routed away from it! And keep the spans between cross-members small.

Good luck ressurrecting that beast!

-Sam

 

> Pressure treated wood is always the *sapwood* of southern
> yellow pine as it is

I disagree, here is a picture of "yella wood" from The Home Depot. It is not "sapwood", but, the whole tree! We counted about 25 rings. A lot/all of the 2x12 pressure treated in my truck bed is heartwood, not sap wood. I think the day and trees are gone where they pick and choose what they use for pressure treated lumber.



> That has to set some kind of new standard for LOW

The PO of my truck used OSB board (not exterior) under some kind of parque flooring. The metal part of the bed was only being held on by two or so tack welds and when you tossed something into the bed it bounced up from the cross members. Did I mention you can nail wood to wood, but, nails do not work so well to attach wood to metal

 

The Home Depots here in Fl (and Lowe's) have non-pressure treated SYP, and if tou're choosy, you can get center cut pc.s like the PT one shown. That's what I made my bed out of, and it was cheap. Plastic decking might be an interesting alternative. I first thought this post was about making the bed sides out of wood; I've always thought about making a bed to look like an old 'woody', then painting the fenders body color. Wouldn't be as durable, but it might be unique on a classic.

 

If you are looking to make a good strong bed floor and are not hung up on wood grain, what about the "plywood" that's made for concrete forming?

It's smooth, strong & water resistant & it isn't much more $$ than good plywood.

Cheers,
Eric

 

Hey!

Well, you are right, of course. I completely oversimplified the case. The majority of framing lumber does contain the pith of the tree - because it is cut from trees which are very young - just barely big enough to cut the piece out of. I stand by my comment that it is still mostly sapwood. The tree hasn't lived long enough to solidify a real core of heartwood, as we (woodworking/carpentry/timber-framing types) would normally describe it. This, however furthers the arguements against, rather than for. The pith is actually the most rot-prone portion of any tree, of course. But just as significant is that the lumber producers are ignoring good lumbering techniques by cutting boxed-heart timbers & boards. To echo your point, how many PT 4x4s, 4x6s, & 6x6s contain the pith of the tree and obviously are nothing more than saplings with the flitches slabbed off? All of them. Such boxed-heart cuts suffer the harshest stresses during the drying process and are the most prone to severe checking, and are likely to exhibit creative warping. Further, that section of board you showed shows 12 rings (included in the pic) and they look to be spaced an average of 1/4"+ apart. That growing speed sacrifices density for shortened harvest cycles - desity = strength.

Anyway, I use PT frequently. It meets code and it has legitimate uses (basically any framing we have to do where the client is squeezing their wallet). I just wouldn't personally ever use it for something as (relatively) small-scale and as visible/aesthetic as a truck bed. Not everyone would feel that way.

 

I had a 74 GMC stepside with the wood floor and I redid the floor with 5/4 decking. After sanding, staining, and 10 coats of polyeurothane you couldn't tell it wasn't oak. Carl

 

Boy, I didn't know I'd be getting an education in wood selection! eehoepp, what's that plywood for concrete you're referring to?