Thread: wood floor for PU -measurements

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Geez guys I need your help here big time. I just priced the wood for the new bed I WAS planning to put in the Willys PU , something like close to a grand all said and done.,.
I'm sure some of you guys have bought the stainless runners and cut your own wood to fit. At least I hope some of you have, so my questions are simple, I figure I can get a friend to cut the recesses to fit the strips into but need some measurements. How wide and how deep are the recesses both along the length of the board and also on the end...
Merry Christamas and hoping Santa fills your socks with good add ons!
Barry

Sorry i cant help, never done it, but if someone has a pic i could figure it out

Brian will probably be along in a minute. He built an outstanding floor in his RP.


Don

I have done this, when building the bed on my roadster pickup. The secret here is that you have to buy the stainless bed strips first, and measure them. Different aftermarket manufacturers sell different widths of strips. I bought mine from Brookville, and they are really nice. You can buy them with prepunched square holes for carriage bolts, or plain. The actual sawcut is the width of a standard tablesaw blade, (about 0.100" to 0.125") and roughly the same depth. The variable is how far in to make the cut from the edge of the board. (the boards should be set up to have 1/32" to 1/16" gap between them, because if you make the bed from dried oak, it will suck up a bit of ambient moisture from the air after its installed, and if you don't leave the gap, the bed will buckle from expansion of the boards.---Brian

Ha Ha Don----I was writing my post while you posted saying I'd be on any minute!!!

Thanks Brian, I hadn't though of just grooving it , I thought it had to be routed out to the edge of the board. Did you cut each board as you went , say from the center out? I also forgot to ask you what thickness was the board. one by?
Thanks again,
Barry

The boards are oak, and dress at a finished dimension of 3/4" x 6 1/2" wide. Since I built the entire box from scratch, I chose a board width that would work out to give me equal widths on all boards (I had to buy boards 7 1/2" wide and cut them down to the 6 1/2" width.) I precut all the boards, and then gave them two coats of stain and 6 coats of Varathane---You want to be sure and do the Varathaning AFTER all the sawcutting is done, so as not to leave any unfinished surfaces (oak is a real bugger to soak up ambient humidity/moisture and swell, if not sealed from the air.)

Thanks again Brian,
M.C.
Barry

Originally Posted by goshawks00

Thanks again Brian,
M.C.
Barry

Yeah, just WAIT til you get his bill !!!


Don

White Oak dosen't soak up moisture as bad a Red but still should be sealed. I had Oak running boards on my 51 GMC p/u and my 38 chevy.