Has anyone made a bed cover for there trucks? I have a 95 f150 with a tool box and I was thinking of making one out of plywood and covering it in Herculiner.

What do you think?

 

After seeing how much tonneau covers (even the cheap vinyl garbage ones) cost, I've been thinking about the same concept: some kind of home made solution.

Plywood with some form of coating/sealant is what I've initially thought of, but as I think more about it, I'll probably think of a better idea.

I'll definately be watching this thread though!

 

I know of one on a dodge made out of plywood and painted black and I didn't realy care for it. Every time i see it it looks worse from the weather. The herculiner may cover up the grain look and protect it beter than the cheap spray paint though. Take a scrap piece of plywood and spray it with herculiner and see what it looks like.

 

Just a thought, how much does sheet metal cost? To cover the plywood. With herculiner on it, might not warp.

 

I have been incubating this idea myself to make a canopy. I'm thinking about using the techniques of a cedar woodstrip canoe. You could make four frames, front and rear ends by steam bending hardwood and glue laminating. Then cover the frames with wood strips like stripping a canoe. Covered inside and outside with fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin.
It wouldn't cost much for the wood, but the epoxy resin isn't cheap. $!$? ...Terry

 

Go check out any big truck and trailer shop. Take a look at their trailer door blanks. They are mostly made of plywood with some kind casing around it such as:stainless steel,diamond design, or a thin layer of fiberglass which you could paint to match. You could also buy the seals for the doors and seal your bed from the weather. I have always planned on trying this, I just have not had the time.

 

Friend with an 8' bed used the top off an old pull behind travel trailer that raised up with a fold out tent. Seems the canvas was rotten and trailer shot. He ripped it down the middle and sized it to fit the bed, it is about 3 1/4" tall and is just the right length. He used .080 wall square tube to fabricate the interior skeleton for longevity and support (4 crossmembers as I remember) and the same tube to make a "luggage carrier" on top of the cover. Painted it all to match his truck and put a cut down sheet of aluminum diamond plate in the luggage rack area. This was done about 5 years ago and looks great the last time I saw the truck. He did fashion a hinge pont which he attached to the tool box in order to raise the cover. Used two simple props that went into the stake holes to hold it up.
Tex

 

my uncle used a sheat of mdf, cut 4 strips of it into a bowed kinda shape and screwed them ontop, then put a vinal covering over top of that, so it looked like a real bed cover with the 4 braces or whatever going across and loose inbetween those, so it looked really good and like a real top. it was on a dodge by the way. looked good too.

 

I've used a vinyl tonneau cover for four years, this winter will be the end of it. They hold up good if you don't try to unsnap them when they are frozen. I might try to make one from1/2 inch conduit and cover with aluminum.

 

Another option for a homemade bed cover is fiberglass. It's not that difficult actually to make yourself. Here is how to do it.

You take measurements as to how wide and long you wish the bed cover to be, then cut out one or more pieces of MDF to match those dimensions. If there is more than one piece of MDF, you'll need to attach them to either other either by doweling the edges together, or attaching 2x4's on the underside using deck screws. make sure the deck screws don't go through the MDF.

Then, using additional pieces of MDF, make a perimeter around the larger sections of MDF you've put together, forming a very shallow "container". Think of it has a massive shoebox lid made out of MDF.

Make sure its screwed and glued together tightly, then prime the inside of this "show box lid" twice, then paint with automotive paint twice. Any color will do, its absolutely irrelevent.

Once the paint is dry, and fully cured, take out your can of turtle wax and start waxing all the painted areas. Wipe off the excess wax, then apply another coat of turtle wax. Two layers.

You can use fiberglass release agent, but its twice the price of turtle wax, and is essentially turtle wax.

Once its completely waxed and dry, then you can mix a batch of resin and hardener. Wear a mask and googles, as this stuff will destroy your lungs and your eyes. Once mixed, use a disposible paint brush and brush it onto the painted area of the mould, and drop a piece of fiberglass on the resin. Then apply more resin to the back of the fiberglass, then dab it in to get rid of all the air bubbles. Now you've done about a 2' square section, so keep going, overlapping the fiberglass slightly and dabbing the resin through. Once you've completed the first layer and up the sides slightly, you need to do another layer, or two.

Once that's mostly dry, you'll apply thin wooden strips, either balsa, pine, poplar, whatever, but the strips should be about 1/8" to 1/4" thick tops, and go the short width of the fiberglass you've laid, but not quite to the edges. Push them onto the fiberglass while its still wet, and push them down. Then apply resin over them, and the surrounding area, and put more fiberglass on top of that, again, dabbing more resin to get rid of any air bubbles. Keep going for another three layers (more if you want it thicker, and don't mind spending the money, usually five layers total is enough for an application this size).

Let the whole thing cure for a day, or two, as necessary. Now comes the fun part, seeing if you can get the fiberglass off the wooden mould. Bang the MDF sides outwards, away from the fiberglass, in small increments all the way around the "shoe box lid". Keep going until its completely off.

Now unscrew the 2x4's that were used to hold the several pieces of MDF together, thus weakening the mold, and try to pull the fiberglass off.

Once it's off, depending how nicely you paint and prepped the MDF and waxed it, will determine how much finish work you'll have to do to your fiberglass lid. You might have to skim it with a paperthin coat of body filler, but do keep it extremely thin.

Trim the outer edges so they are straight, slightly rounding the edges with your angle grinder with a course sanding disk, or use a hand rasp if you want to go slow and be careful.

Prime and paint, and you now have a fiberglass bed lid. Install with pin hinges, hatchback struts, whatever method you prefer.

This is how professional lids are made, except instead of laying the fiberglass by hand, as I've discribed, they have a pricey "chopper gun" which feeds long rolls of fiberglass "string", slicing and dicing it into 6" (or so) sections as it flys out the gun, spraying resin and hardener onto where the sliced fiberglass strings are landing. This is by far a faster way of building a lid, but you need a powerful air compressor, the chop gun, access to spools of fiberglass yarn, and gallon+ cans of resin and hardener. A little pricy for a one shot deal. If you're going to make 20-30 of these, or make quantities of body parts, this is an effective way of doing it.

I'm making a dashboard for my truck with this method, and in the past have made fender flares and other minor parts out of fiberglass.

Don't be afraid to overdo the safety gear either - old clothes, gloves, goggles, an old hat, a respirator mask, and do this on a huge tarp. Resin sticks to just about everything, and is nasty to peel off your driveway. Ask me how I know

 

Fredrick,
Never knew how to construct in fiberglass, thanks. The camper lid that John cut to make his bed cover was fiberglass and he made a strong tube frame to support it, due mostly to the idea of hauling about anything he wanted on top of it. I had always thought he'd used something like SFA to bond the center joint and now I'm quite certain he just glassed it. Thank you for the "illumination". Hope you've survived the fiberglass epsode okay, though, sounds like asbestos, be very careful.
Thanks, Tex

 

The problem with 'glassing over steel is that the resin doesn't stick to steel very well. it sticks to fiberglass, some plastics, and itself much better.

I've used small-hole chicken wire to form shapes, then glass over that, then glass under it, but through the holes of the chicken wire is how the top fiberglass layer sticks to the lower fiberglass layer.

My homemade dashboard also had minor steel structures under it, and it required some welded on metal tabs to achieve the same thing.