3" Bed Washers - Flush With Wood Surface or Sitting on Top of Wood Surface?

[bkahler]

The title says it all, anyone know the answer?  From the pictures that I have of my original bed it appears the washers sat on top of the bed surface.

Edited Monday at 08:52 PM by bkahler

[Los_Control]

My trailer with original wood has them sitting on top.

[bkahler]

12 minutes ago, Los_Control said:

My trailer with original wood has them sitting on top.

 

Your trailer matches with what I believe was the original bed on my truck. 

 

Here's the only good picture I have of the bed that shows the washers and the wood.  It sure looks like they sat on top of the planks.

 

[Los_Control]

Here is what I'm looking at

 

[bkahler]

That washer certainly appears to sitting on top of the plank. 

 

Thanks!

[Los_Control]

The other corner is missing the bolt and washer .... you can see the wood is flush and the washer was not counter sunk. .... The wood is marked from the washer but  same level across. ..... Mine sit on top.

[Young Ed]

And from a manufacturers prospective I doubt they'd go through the labor of countersinking washers for a mostly aesthetic reason 

[bkahler]

Just now, Young Ed said:

And from a manufacturers prospective I doubt they'd go through the labor of countersinking washers for a mostly aesthetic reason 

 

That's pretty much what I was thinking as well. 

[John-T-53]

Countersink 'em. Looks / functions better. 

[Dave72dt]

ggdad1951's "building a wood bed" link's first picture shows the washers clearly countersunk in the old wood.

Edited Monday at 10:28 PM by Dave72dt

[bkahler]

25 minutes ago, Dave72dt said:

ggdad1951's "building a wood bed" link's first picture shows the washers clearly countersunk in the old wood.

 

Yeah, his picture clearly shows countersinking and rabbiting for the shovel strips.  I kind of get the impression Dodge built beds both ways.  My truck had a piece of plywood on top of the remnants of what I believe was the original wood and there were no rabbits and no countersinking. 

 

I kind of like the utilitarian look of no rabbits and no countersinking. 

 

 

[Dave72dt]

Washer on top the wood makes me think of scraping snow off a sidewalk or driveway and coming up against a raised edge.  I realize that bed will never see a scoop shovel and you may not be able to relate to scraping snow off a driveway but I think it looks more utilitarian with the washers recessed.  JMO.  You could eliminate those washers and bolt the cross members using the only the bottom holes and short bolts.  The bed is still bolted to the cross members on the outside by the side angles.

[Jerry Roberts]

The replacement boards from Horkey's has the recesses for the washers 1939 - 1947 .  

[JBNeal]

4 hours ago, bkahler said:

The title says it all, anyone know the answer?  From the pictures that I have of my original bed it appears the washers sat on top of the bed surface.

 

This corner of the Spring Special bed still has its black paint present, and it appears that the shovel strips are rabbited in and the bed washers are seated in counterbores.  I believe both of these details serve a purpose:

• shovel strips lock into the rabbits to keep the boards from moving laterally, which might expose the gaps between the boards and the bedsides
• without the counterbore, any compression of the boards by the big washers could cause splintering around the washers, which could snag on burlap or paper feed sacks; the counterbore removes this risk by placing any splintering below the bed boards surface

[Los_Control]

43 minutes ago, JBNeal said:

This corner of the Spring Special bed still has its black paint present, and it appears that the shovel strips are rabbited in and the bed washers are seated in counterbores. 

Not saying it is true, not saying it is not true .... As the wood gets older and shrinks and the years go by .... the bolts would become loose.

So if a owner crawled under the truck and tightened the bolts up .... they could easily suck the washers into the 1/2 rotted lumber. And appear to be countersunk.

To be honest, looking at your photo the washers are actually below the surface of the wood. .... which "could" indicate someone came along and tightened them up.

 

2 hours ago, bkahler said:

Yeah, his picture clearly shows countersinking and rabbiting for the shovel strips.  I kind of get the impression Dodge built beds both ways.  My truck had a piece of plywood on top of the remnants of what I believe was the original wood and there were no rabbits and no countersinking. 

 

I kind of like the utilitarian look of no rabbits and no countersinking. 

 

Could go either way .... I can see the aftermarket manufacturers doing it because it looks cool and is clean .... would Dodge do it on the assembly line?

 

Just my opinion they were not countersunk, but later on could have been .... A good place to use your own judgement

[Dave72dt]

I would expect washers that had been pulled down by tightening to have rounded edges on the wood.  All the pictures of the old wood seem to have a machined, sharp edge.   The bolts would also have been rusty making successfully tightening them difficult.  I believe they were countersunk originally.  It doesn't make sense to not countersink them for a bed usability perspective.

[ggdad1951]

9 hours ago, Los_Control said:

Not saying it is true, not saying it is not true .... As the wood gets older and shrinks and the years go by .... the bolts would become loose.

So if a owner crawled under the truck and tightened the bolts up .... they could easily suck the washers into the 1/2 rotted lumber. And appear to be countersunk.

To be honest, looking at your photo the washers are actually below the surface of the wood. .... which "could" indicate someone came along and tightened them up.

 

 

Could go either way .... I can see the aftermarket manufacturers doing it because it looks cool and is clean .... would Dodge do it on the assembly line?

 

Just my opinion they were not countersunk, but later on could have been .... A good place to use your own judgement

My original bed wood is long gone in the fire pit, but I can tell you the countersink was factory and not a repeated tightening of a bolt.  Wood in my bed was not by any means all rotten, was actually in decent enough shape, just not resto quality.  From a factory setting, the rabbits and a counter sink are not that big of a process to do and litterally the right thing to do for someone that woudl be shoveling.

 

I'd say countersunk factory.

[Young Ed]

I should have looked first. Grabbed a couple of my bills and while there aren't many pics that show the bed there are a few and they clearly show countersunk washers. Interesting they all also appear to be unfinished or at least not finished black to match. So with the contrast it's easy to see they are sunk in. It appears they are even slightly below the level of the boards. 

[Los_Control]

8 hours ago, ggdad1951 said:

I'd say countersunk factory.

And I say NOT!!!   🤣🤣🤣

Seems like some were and some were not. I went out and took a closer look at mine today and no chance they ever were .... no chance the wood is not original either.

 

I imagine some plants did and some did not, maybe depends on where your truck was built?

[ggdad1951]

As always....your truck do what you want!

[bkahler]

Well, here's an update as to what's been happening with the bed saga

 

To start with, the wood I've been trying to use is Cypress which would have been fine if it had been quarter sawn.  Instead, it was flat sawn and immediately after planing it to thickness I started having issues with the grain opening up, so much so that you could catch it with your fingernail.  The bottom line is the quality of the wood did not make me happy at all.  Next, I'm assuming you all noticed the gray color of the finish I applied.  I was told when I bought the stain that it would dry darker, i.e. closer to flat black, it obviously did not. 

 

At this point I decided to re-coat the gray stain with a different stain that was labeled Total Black.  It was touted to be able to be applied over an existing stain, unfortunately it did not apply well over the gray stain.  It's been over a week and it is still tacky to the touch.  I'm not a painter at all so I'm sure my methods had a lot to do with the poor quality finish.  I finally bit the bullet and decided to scrap the existing Cypress planks and go a different direction.

 

I talked with Steve at DCM Classics about the plank kits he sells and I've decided to go with his Ash plank kit.  The kit has the boards routed for the shovel strips and the large washer holes are countersunk.  I hemmed and hawed for a while about rabbiting for the shovel strips but decided in the end to just go with it the kit as is.  I should have it in a week or so.   So that lays to rest the decision on whether to countersink and rabbit 😄

 

With work on the bed on hold for a while I decided to tackle adding a hitch to the truck.  To me, a truck without a hitch isn't really a truck 

 

I ended up buying one of those universal receiver hitch assemblies and custom fitted it to the truck.  The top of the receiver tube is about 2" below the bumper and the center of the hitch is about 14" above the road.  I have no real plans to use the truck for towing but I have several trailers that I'm always moving around and I think the truck would be suitable for short trips.  Having four wheel disc brakes sure won't hurt matters any.  Anyway, the hitch installation is done, I just need to add the wiring connector and connect it to the tail lights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tony_Urwin]

I like the idea of a trailer hitch. What class or TW is a universal hitch like yours? Stout enough to tow a boat?

[bkahler]

This is the Trailer Hitch I installed.  It's a Class III hitch.  The truck frame is 40" wide and this just fit that perfectly.  I just added a couple of 1/4" side plates to the frame and drilled a lot of holes in the plates for mounting.  I didn't add any holes in the frame. 

 

Specification: Gross towing weight capacity: 5,000 to 8,000 lbs. Tongue weight capacity: 500 lbs. Receiver tube size: 2"

[Young Ed]

Here is my bed- I also used a dark stain. However I was going more for the day 2 look when the guys would coat in used motor oil vs black paint

 

 

 

 

[JBNeal]

1 hour ago, bkahler said:

... I decided to re-coat the gray stain with a different stain that was labeled Total Black.  It was touted to be able to be applied over an existing stain, unfortunately it did not apply well over the gray stain.  It's been over a week and it is still tacky to the touch.  I'm not a painter at all so I'm sure my methods had a lot to do with the poor quality finish...

I have limited experience with applying stains, but I noticed that stains applied in warmer weather appear to dry faster and more evenly.   I stripped and stained an oak table that was originally painted multiple coats of black, did this in a small 1-car garage in February so I could run a propane space heater in there to get the temperature up in the 60s.  I had read that getting the wood cleaned well and allowing to dry thoroughly was critical before staining, so I'd clean one day and let it dry for 2 days just to be safe, with the heater within 5 feet of the wood but not under it.

 

The dark maroon-ish stain I applied dried somewhat evenly to look like red cherry like the gf wanted, but I could tell where I had slopped out too much stain and did not wipe off the excess fast enough...she commented that she liked the randomness of the grain accents or sumthin-ruther so as long as she was happy, I was fine with it.

 

Anyhow, I recall doing a test stain on some scrap oak and it was a little tacky after 24hrs.  I guessed that the 50ish degree air temp was too low so I cranked up the space heater to get it to stay in the 60s in that garage and the next test went well enough that I went to staining the underside of the table first to get my technique polished.