bed wood for 1/2 ton

[Angel4951]

Im working on a 49 bed1/2 ton. Im guessing the sizes are 8 inches by 78inches by 1/2 inches per x 4 total cut palets. Does anyone know if thats correct id hate to be wrong before I buy wood. 

Also whats the scoop on type of wood is best. Worker at home depot said redwood termites hate but is it the strongest? What wood did dodge use?

[Brent B3B]

 

ggdad1951 has some info in his signature...... 

Edited November 15, 2016 by Brent B3B

[dpollo]

 I have a 52  and I made new box planks from local west coast fine grained fir.  The original wood was some sort of eastern hardwood which in fact seemed pretty soft.   I have not had the truck out in the wet so I do not know yet if the fir will cup but I have sealed it pretty thoroughly.

The thickness is 7/8 and the grooves for the box strips which I bought from Mar K  can all be cut on a tablesaw.  What surprised me is that the outer planks are tapered as the box is actually one inch wider at the tailgate than at the front panel.  I do not know if all trucks are that way but mine certainly is which means I have to re make the outer planks.  The truck is not at my home now so I cannot give you dimensions other than the thickness.  I can recommend MarK for their box strips and bolt kit.  They probably sell wood too . Have a look at their on line catalog.

[rb1949]

You missed the post/pix started in 2012.

 

[jpwuertz]

Here is the bed wood specs from the DCPETA  area of this site

 

the following is information received from our members about the correct sizes to cut wood if doing your own truck bed. 
There are 6 boards all total, plus 5 metal skid strips and 2 side angles.  (This is different than other makes of trucks in the same era such a Chevy’s that used 7 boards in their beds).

Depth =¾  inches.    All the wood is the same thickness

Length = 78 inches, some people cut to length of  77 7/8 inches, so that the boards don’t actually touch the front or back of the bed, thus preventing some of the rust and rot that previous beds experienced.  If you have a different length bed,  then adjust the board length accordingly.

Rabbit = ½ inch wide X 3/16 inch deep, if you want the metal skid strips just a little above the wood. That way anything in the bed rests on the runners and not on your beautifully finished wood.   Otherwise, ½ inch wide X ¼ inchdeep for Mar-K skid strips to lay flush with the bed wood. If your skids aren’t from Mar-K then set the depth accordingly.  All interior boards (B) will be rabbitted on both left and right sides.  The two exterior boards (A) only have rabbit on side facing the interior.

(A) Width, Outer Boards = 7 ¾ inch.   Two outer boards can be as wide as 8 inch for a tighter fit, or shave ¼ for more flexibility in getting everything to look straight..  Your skid strip spacing allows for some adjustment.  Remember, you can cut to 8 inch wide and then trim later if you need more room.

(B) Width, Inner Boards = 7 11/16 – 7 3/8 inch.  The four inner boards are same width.  A wider size of 7 11/16,  gives the skid strips more to hold only to and make for a tighter fit, but do not allow for as much variance.  The smaller size keeps things a bit looser for adjustment purposes.  The main criterion seems to be that all boards look straight and parallel when finished.

( C) Spacing= ½ inch.  Space between boards (to allow for skid strips and bolts) is the same between all boards.  Some people will trim the outside boards by 1/8 inch so the wood doesn’t actually touch the bedsides and create rot.

Skid Strip bolts = 8 1/8 inch.  Distance between bolt holes for skid strips is 8 1/8 inch center to center for inside boards.  Outside skid strip bolts have the center hole 8 ¼ or 8 3/8 inch from the bed side.  If your holes are different then wood spacing will need to be adjusted.

Other things to watch for.  Put anti squeak between the frame and bed crossmembers.  Some people use a small nylon washer between the wood and support frames to slightly raise the wood and keep it dry when in direct contact with the metal frame. Otherwise, water doesn't dry out where the wood is in continual contact with metal.

Dimensions for the hold down bolts on the outer boards.  I don’t have this information.  Can someone supply this. There are 3 holds for bolts, 2 to bolt to the frame and 1 to bolt to a cross member. There are no holes in the 4 inner boards as they are held in place by the skid strips.

Here’s an illustration to help:

Board Dimensions
	A Outer	C	B Inner	C	B Inner	C	B Inner	C	B Inner	C	A Outer

[ggdad1951]

21 hours ago, Angel4951 said:

Im working on a 49 bed1/2 ton. Im guessing the sizes are 8 inches by 78inches by 1/2 inches per x 4 total cut palets. Does anyone know if thats correct id hate to be wrong before I buy wood. 

Also whats the scoop on type of wood is best. Worker at home depot said redwood termites hate but is it the strongest? What wood did dodge use?

The species of wood possibly varied by location of the plant is my guess.  Southern Yellow Pine was what I was told was original (and seemed right on inspection from FEF).  I used WHITE OAK as it WILL NOT rot or do bad things in weather.  The proper color is to be PAINTED BLACK, not all prettified (unless that's your direction) and left ROUGH cut.  The ONLY, and I repeat ONLY, location to get the RIGHT bed strips is from Midwest Military (https://midwestmilitary.com/) where they have their own dies to make the strips.  Mar-K and Horkey all use Chevy/Ford strips in their kits.

As noted ^^^ you can check out my bed build thread in my sig lines.

Can't wait to see what you end up with!

[wallytoo]

On 11/15/2016 at 1:43 PM, dpollo said:

The original wood was some sort of eastern hardwood which in fact seemed pretty soft.

 

i surmise the erroneous information about the original dodge truck beds being hardwoods results from the common description of southern yellow pine as hard pine, which then gets described as "hardwood".

[Merle Coggins]

Mine is Hickory, because it was free from a cabinet maker friend. It was leftover pieces that were too light in color for a cabinet project that he did. Since I was planning to paint it anyway the color of the wood didn't matter. I painted the planks with the same paint that I painted the rest of the bed panels with.

 

Merle

[pflaming]

I put a 3/4 " marine plywood floor in mine and stained it black. Have not been sorry but then my truck is a truck and used accordingly. Yet one could finish that plywood into a beautiful finish in any stain desired, then put the shovel strips and and . . . .l 

[RobWood]

I just tore my bed apart and seem to be missing some cross members. I have 3 c channel cross members but their seems to be a need for a rear support at the tailgate end and was told that their is another support in the front of the bed. Does any one know what actually is needed in the bed for supports? Also someone was saying someting about L brackets and such.....HELP ME

[John-T-53]

On 11/16/2016 at 5:52 AM, ggdad1951 said:

The species of wood possibly varied by location of the plant is my guess.  Southern Yellow Pine was what I was told was original (and seemed right on inspection from FEF).  I used WHITE OAK as it WILL NOT rot or do bad things in weather.  The proper color is to be PAINTED BLACK, not all prettified (unless that's your direction) and left ROUGH cut.  The ONLY, and I repeat ONLY, location to get the RIGHT bed strips is from Midwest Military (https://midwestmilitary.com/) where they have their own dies to make the strips.  Mar-K and Horkey all use Chevy/Ford strips in their kits.

As noted ^^^ you can check out my bed build thread in my sig lines.

Can't wait to see what you end up with!

 

I was previously thinking out using IPE or another variant of exotic hardwood, but I recently used white oak on a carriage door project and liked the way it behaved, plus it's lighter than the Brazilian stuff, cheaper, and smells better. My local woodcraft only had the oak in 31/32" though.

 

[Merle Coggins]

9 hours ago, RobWood said:

I just tore my bed apart and seem to be missing some cross members. I have 3 c channel cross members but their seems to be a need for a rear support at the tailgate end and was told that their is another support in the front of the bed. Does any one know what actually is needed in the bed for supports? Also someone was saying someting about L brackets and such.....HELP ME

 

3 C-channel cross members is correct. Depending on what size truck you have you may have 1 that's longer than the other 2. This would be the front one. The rear one is shorter than the other 3 and and is more like a C-channel that's been boxed in.

The 3rd one is not shown in this pic, as it is typically not attached to the frame. It would sit just ahead of where the driveshaft is resting. It wasn't missing, just sitting elsewhere when this pic was taken. Second pic shows the rear one from a different angle.

[tanda62]

I used pine wood and painted it with Black POR-15 and a topcoat of Black Rust-o-leum for UV protection.  The boards are very strong and nothing will penetrate that POR-15 coating. The company Mar-K did a test of many different finishes and POR-15 outlasted all. Check out the Wood Finish testing they did here (http://www.mar-k.com/index.php?p=tips-and-tricks)

 

[Dodgeb4ya]

I don't think anything  will be loaded into that pretty bed ...

Maybe some soft and cushy blankets though?

[tanda62]

That is a good one! This bed only hauls very important cargo like my golf clubs. ?

Hopefully we can load up some people for our annual Christmas parade in town. ?

[tinlizzy]

I have the low 1948 and Merle indicated there were only 3 C channel braces.  My truck had 6 braces but there was no wood in the bed when I got the truck.  Only thing holding the braces were what was left of the strips.  Any idea why the difference?  I haven't decided which type of wood I will use, even had a suggestion for a metal bed from a dakota truck but I am not a welder so that is probably not going to happen.

 

[Jj1981]

2” rough sawn oak and pine stained.  No trim. 

[tinlizzy]

Well I found why my pickup has more braces.  It has a panel truck frame, has 4 holes on each side for the bed to mount instead of the 3 holes the pickup frame has.  Who'da thunk it?

 

[RobWood]

On 5/7/2020 at 10:27 AM, tanda62 said:

I used pine wood and painted it with Black POR-15 and a topcoat of Black Rust-o-leum for UV protection.  The boards are very strong and nothing will penetrate that POR-15 coating. The company Mar-K did a test of many different finishes and POR-15 outlasted all. Check out the Wood Finish testing they did here (http://www.mar-k.com/index.php?p=tips-and-tricks)

 

 

I see you have 7 strips like i do. But I do not have a step side.What were the widths of your boards?

[tanda62]

The middle boards are 5 inches and the two side boards are 10.  These are specific for a 1953 B-4-C.  I got them from this website https://bedwoodandparts.com/  so check with them for your particular truck to get the right size.  I did not get them drilled although that is an option, I wanted to drill them myself to make sure any bed movement over the years could be accounted for.  They did come with nice channels for the strips to fit down into.

[Radarsonwheels]

Funny my bed had a taper to it as well- 5/8” if I remember right.

 

I went away from stock where the chassis holds the wood and the wood holds the box. On mine I made a 1” .120 wall square tube frame for the bed that uses poly iso mounts on four pedestals on the frame. 

For my wood I used ipe- should be the last time I buy wood for it. My buddy gave me three boards free and I spent $225ish on two more. I did use 5/4 or whatever they call actual 1” thick boards though. I did the notched out profile thing on the tablesaw- like 6 trips thru per board. I also shaped my outside boards tightish to the tubs with no edge angle strips.
 

I got the mar-k stainless strips and drilled them where I needed the holes for my non stock bed. Some have crossmembers and some have fender washers underneath.