Pickup Guys... What's in your bed?

I'm gonna start doin paint and body on my work truck/driver soon and I was brainstorming. It's a 1960 Ford F250 longbed fleetside. I probably will have stuff in the bed from time to time, so I'm not sure about painting the inside of the bed. I know wood is one way to go but I'm partial on that as well. What do you guys have? Anyone dare RhinoLine it?

 

Depends on what you start with in my opinion. If you have 47 years of dents dings and crunches use a bed liner. Junk yards will usually give them away because they have a hard time getting rid of them. Trim to fit. If your bed is nice, get a sheet of plywood, stain and varnish and take it out when you want to show off. Put it in when you are using your truck like a truck.

 

Once was taking a look at a dealership at both a 1970 chevy p/u and an early 60's ford p/u. Both had superb paint and bodywork done, some of the best Ive seen around these parts. The problem lied in that someone thought it would be good to coat with a black dip liner in both as part of the restoration -I shrugged it off and left thinking what a waste of an otherwise great job. Can look like crap especially on a lighter colored truck. I suppose you could get away with this however if you had a tonneau cover to hide it from the world when your not hauling.

 

Fat chicks for traction.

 

The inside of the bed on my F-100 was finished as nice as the rest of the sheet metal, with the show wood floor......and it's nearly useless. I do occasionally use it as a truck to haul stuff, along with the goin to the car show crap. I'm always worried about stuff moving around and damaging the inside of the bed (normally I have a rubber mat that I sit anything on).

Next month, I'll begin on making a cover (over the entire bed) and compartments. The goal is to have a cover that will look something like the wood floor of the bed and secure, weather tight storage for tools, spare tire, chairs, canopy coolers, luggage..other goodies.

 

You could use a spray in liner the same color as the truck. Looks a little better than the black.

 

Mine will have expanded metal floor. I can still haul crap and not have the weight or worry about nicking the wood. I mounted the trans cooler on the bottom side so air flow will not be a problem. I plan on putting an alum cover over the bed with the rear 1/3 hinged to get to the fuel cell. The tail gate will be louvered for air flow.

 

BTW, stained wood is a lot of work and upkeep.

 

so are fat chicks

 

But they are more fun to rub.

 

well i got some ole ford 17wires in my bed right now and a 40axel
junt and a jack
and termites holdin hands

 

not if you coat them in a good spar polyurethane...

oh, you mean the lumber, not the chicks... my bad

 

I got a piece of coreagated Stainless Steel. Its 1 1/2 thick. Was used for some kind of floor or bulkhead in Boeing airplanes. Boeing paid $1500 a sheet. A friend of mine is quality control for the FAA. He tests Boeing parts........OLDBEET

 

I was afraid of a spray on bedliner taking away from the coolness of the truck itself. Then again paint or nice wood takes away from the usefullness of it. I'm torn!

 

Then again, you could use some kind of wood that does not rot and is durable. Ipe, from south america is used on a lot of decks. It's tough and has natural oils, so it's very resistant to rot, and wears tough, so it could take some abuse.

Any other normal wood (oak, maple, cherry pine) needs to have a marine varnish job on all 6 sides.

 

I took the oak boards that were in it when I got it, scuffed them up, and put a coat of spar varnish on them.

About 5 years later I did it again and this is how it looks. Darker and easy to maintain.

I had the strips sandblasted, self etch primed them, flat black rattle canned them and there you go.

I figure either the wood or metal can be touched up easily and I have no worries of hauling.

I am trying to figure out some original creative tie down ideas either using the 4 bolts holding the bed in or something similar.

Tim

 

Ipe is a good wood as you mentioned for sure. kinda pain in the ass to work if you ask me, but thats a thread for a woodworkers forum

teak is also tuff as hell and stands up to the elements. hell, the navy used the stuff to plank the decks of ships right up till the early 60's

if you use a GOOD spar urethane over boards that have been grain sealed with a decent sealer there is no reason to worry about using oak, maple, mahogany, SYP or douglas fir on a bed floor.

just keep in mind when buying and applying the sealer to make sure its the same base as the spar urethane you intend to use. personally i like the zar products, but there are a lot of others out there.



hell, if you REALLY want a period perfect wooden truck bed, make it out of oak and then apply blonde shellac over that. dont last for shit, so you'll be re-applying about once a year to keep it looking decent, but hey, its period specific! not to mention boiled linnseed oil... stinky and messy but protects like hell against rot

 

I' ve got 6 or so old wheels with flat tires, rusted out model a windshield frame, a broken model a windshield and several dead batteries...that I can see, junk jungle beast hiding under all the stuff

 

snow and leaves...

 

google "plastic plywood". i made the hatch covers in my boat with this stuff, its awesome. it comes in colors and you can work it just like wood. you could rout grooves down the length to give it some dimension and to keep shit from sliding around. the only stuff I have seen like it is composite decking material

 

a couple pics of mine







jp

 

All good ideas, I'm leanin towards a heavy duty sealer/stain on some nice wood. Have to talk to the "experts" at the home depot and see what they think about what will hold up best. How do the boards get put in? I'm new to the whole pickup bed thing. Just metal strips between the boards to hold em in place or whats the deal.

 

i bought new stainless strips and cut the wood myself. my 64 is a daily driver so wanted it usable so really not concerned about it looking really fancy...but did want it to look nice so coated with bed liner so the stainless contrasts nicely...you can buy kits from several different places but as i was going to coat mine, just bought hard wood from home depot...

 

I prefer my English garden. Very different.

 

Coated in bed liner how? Got any pics I can't picture it.