I'm kind of surprized to see the carved uprights on the F-1 bed in the picture you posted:



That was the truck board member 52'F-3 had, it came on a parts truc he bought last summer. That's a F-1 bed that he said was a Northern Classic reproduction and this is the image they used to have on their web site:



I looked it again hadn't noticed the carved side uprights. The bed I found for Tanner didn't have carved side uprights, basically 2X4s, only the two on the back had the routered detail. The wood was so bad on the flatbed it literally crumbled in my hands. It surprised me that it still had all of the original hardware. The side boards on the bed could have been changed in the 50+ years.

Here is the drawing I did for the upright on the back board:

http://www.fatfenderedtrucks.com/sca...ke_upright.PDF

I also have this on my updated .dwg drawing of the flatbed.

1948-52 ford scrip flatbed

 

Bob,

I was thinking about the pics above again, and I was wondering if that is the finished product or did they go back and paint all of the gray painted parts to a gloss black or another color? Or is Gray supposed to be the correct color for the bed frame?

 

I am sure Northern just applied primer and left it up to the buyer to paint it. The bed I have for my F-4 was painted orange with I bought it used, I haven't checked to see if there is another color under it. I have no idea what color they were painted from the Ford factory new. I would assume Ford did it the cheapest way possible but, would that be the same color as the rest of the truck or did they have a stack of black ones sitting in a warehouse somewhere they just installed as needed? I don't know. Whatever they did I am sure, like the pickup bed wood, the wood on the flatbeds were painted the same color as the bed.

BTW, I just relooked at the pictures of the two beds above and realized something I didn't notice before. The bed on the truck is a F-1 bed. It has the same back bumpers as the larger F-4 and up beds. The one in the Northern picture is for a F-2/3, just like the one you're getting. It has two different rear bumpers, along with a swing side panels, the F-1's doesn't have have them. On the rear bumpers on the F-2/3 beds the one on the passenger's side is a cast piece that is longer and bolts directly to the frame at the very end. The horizontal wooden beam that is between the bed and the frame is also about 2/3 as long as the one on the driver's side. I surmised this was to allow for the storage of the spare tire in between the bed and frame.

With these old trucks you learn something new every day.

 

Bob, Thanks for taking the time to help all of us. The drawing for the rails is just perfect!

 

I read somewhere that the metal frame for the flatbed was painted the same color as the cab on the 53-56s. Some of the ad pics have black and some have the bed and the stakes painted the same color as the cab.

I do not know this to be one way or the other. Call me confused. I am leaning towards matching the cab and staining the wood on my '55.

 

Great, just what I need, more decisions on what to paint what color.

My overall paint plan, is to paint the front fenders black, the entire cab, hood, and doors as a dark charcoal gray, and now that I have a new flatbed, I would like to paint that Black to match the front fenders. How does that sound? I wish I was good with photoshop so that I could draw these color schemes on my truck so I could envision it better, but I am horrible at it.

Oh, and as a final touch, I was going to do a circle on both doors, and inside the circle I would stencil "Tanner's Trouble" in red color.

 

Sounds pretty cool to me.

 

 

Jeeze Bob, you must have some serious time on your hands. Thanks for the pic. That's great.

 

Not really, I just had some time to sit in front of the computer for a few minutes last night.

 

Bob if you got extra time.... how about taking the white 52 and making a waterfall blue 55?

 

Thanks Bob! This will be one Sweet looking Flatbed.

 

Bob,

Do you have specs on the horizontal pieces for the stakes as well? I didn't see them on your site. It looks like the bottoms board should be like a 1x10 and then the top two are supposed to be 1x4 or 1x6?

 

Hey Bob,

If you get a minute, can I send you a picture and have you make my rear end look smaller?

 

hahaha, it took me a minute to get that....