Custom truck bed

Hey Fellas,

I am working on customizing the bed of my truck. What I would like to do is put a hardwood floor in the bed with either chrome or billet inserts in between each piece of hard wood. My question to you guys is what is the best "thing" to use for such inserts and where can I buy it. Also any pics you guys may have would be great as well.

I am also looking for 1950's hot rod pinup girls or 1940's military pinups(girls riding bombs) as I would like to do a wall mural in my garagemahal.

Thanks

What kind of truck is it?

You can buy wood kits for most makes, that come with the wood and steel strips. You can go with the painted metal or stainless. I imagine that you can just buy the metal strips if you wish, but unless you are a woodworker, it probably better to buy the kit.

Go scrounging around your local steel supplier and see what they have for neat goodies in the aluminum rack. How about a piece of aluminum rectangular tubing, say 1/2" x 3/4" for a spacer between the boards, and a piece of .090 X 1" strap all polished out fastened to it with stainless screws to hold your boards in place? A little scrounging and creativity should produce something that looks and works good.

Brian will probably post on this one as he did a great job on his RPU bed.


Don

Used maple on mine with alunminum strips

Where did you get the aluminum ones??? Are they good enough aluminum that they could be polished?

Oak with 3 coats of Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane on top, bottom and sides. Strips are stainless steel with chrome carrage bolts. You might try http://www.johnsf100.com/ for the stainless steel strips.

Great looking bed, Mike. Thanks for the link!!!

My wife Laurie did all the refinishing on the oak. She did a great job.

Dave I picked the aluminum strips up at a locl hardware store and even though they don't stay shinny for long, they do buff right back up so they look like new again. Usually do this about every month. Could have used s.s. but I got these at a real good price.

I bought stainless strips for mine from Brookville, and used stainless carriage bolts from Fastenall.---Buy the strips with the pre-punched square holes---that way the square shank on the underside of the carriage bolt head will keep the bolt from turning when you tighten up the nuts from underneath.---Brian(if you use the search feature, I did a really complete post on building my roadster pickup bed about 2 or 3 years ago.)

THanks for the pic's guys much appreciated. I am doing this to a 95 chev s10 ss, I know its not a hot rod to you guys, but I figured I would ask the pros on tips for doing a wooden bed. My plans for the truck are to do a bit of a retro look. I already have my torq thrust rims, 57 chevy emblems, and I plan on trying to fab a 57 chevy dash into it(wish me luck)

Thanks again for the pics fellas

Pat

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Originally Posted by MikeB

Oak with 3 coats of Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane on top, bottom and sides. Strips are stainless steel with chrome carrage bolts. You might try http://www.johnsf100.com/ for the stainless steel strips.

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Hey Mike........what is the name of that blue? Whose color is it? Man, I love it.


Don

Hi Don,

Thanks for the compliment, The color is 1996 Ford, Lem 6799, the paint is Sikkens Royal Blue Pearl.

Thanks. It really looks super against that nice woodwork.


Don