New bed wood options

[tdangle]

I'm redoing the wood bed in my 8' Fleetside truck. It is not a show truck and I do use it as a truck when needed. I just got a pine wood bed kit and am going to paint the bottom of the boards black with exterior wood paint and use a varnish primer and topcoat natural color varnish for the top exposed portion of the boards. Truck is garaged. At first I was going to paint the metal channels body color (med blue) to match the rest of the truck when finally painted, but am now thinking about coating the metal strips with a bed liner type material for durability and scratch resistance. Has anyone done this and have pictures. Or any other ideas/suggestions.

['68OrangeSunshine]

Bed Liner might be a good idea for looks and anti-corrosion. Usually it has some grit in it for no-slip friction. But if you intend on sliding cardboard boxes in the bed, and using the next box to push the last box forward, the no-slip surface may fight you.
Chrome strips would give you the smoothest flow.
This is assuming you want to use your pickup as a Truck, and not a Sundays-and-Fourth-Of-July-Parade-only party machine.

[tdangle]

Good point about it being "gritty"

I've not seen chrome, only the plain which looks like it has some sort of zinc like finish and stainless steel unpolished and polished.

['68OrangeSunshine]

Sorry, Stainless Steel was what I was thinking of. You could have a set chromed if you had the money. If money were no object you could have them 24K gold-plated too. That would give quite the twinkle to a 50th Anniversary truck.

[68Gold/white]

Is the bed going to be used for ANY hauling???

The wood finish will scratch, from a lot of potential items.

So I'm guessing the strips are NOT stainless???

[tdangle]

I like the 24K thought, but a bit out of my price range. HaHa.

Yes I use it as a truck, hauling stuff as needed. Thats why I want to balance looks with durability. Thats why I bought pine in lieu of oak. Extra cost for oak and I know if it got scratched/dented it would bother me a lot more than the pine. Same reason I went with steel strips in lieu of the stainless steel. The original bed which is falling apart was put together with pine/steel strips and the entire floor painted with body paint at the factory.

['68OrangeSunshine]

Here in the Sonoran Desert with its temperature extremes, I think Oak would withstand UV better. Not an expert, though.
Usually I get a fresh 4x8 sheet of 3/4'' exterior plywood, cut it down to 72'' and slide it in the bed. A runner of 1x2 on one side fills in the slack. With the price of plywood now, that's not happening.
I cleared out a tradeshow display of flooring materials from a resort ballroom a couple years ago. I laid in some faux wood linoleum panels on the back deck. Looked great the first couple years. Now the linoleum is showing its age, but I have worse things to deal with now.
Like rebuilding my rear suspension after a collision.

[Steeveedee]

The pine (unless it is southern yellow pine, like from factory) is going to dent a lot worse than oak, and will not take the sun well, either. Storing indoors will help a lot with that. If it were me, I'd use stainless for the metal strips. Buy once, cry once. I'm guessing that the stainless strips are 300 series; if they are 400 series they will still rust.

One of our members was doing a longevity test with an oil based finish that can be reapplied, like boiled linseed oil. You can apply that once a year or so.

[sick472]

I'm not a fan of painting or clear coat painting a wood bed unless it's just for show. Paint just scratches and becomes obvious. If you have to go with steel strips and not SS...you should paint them with a gray steel-like color to help hide the scratches once they occur.

My advise for the wood is to paint the bottoms and sides with POR-15 and merely oil treat the tops. Once in the beginning and every couple years thereafter. Reapplying wood oil to it will also help protect the strips once they scuff off the paint on the high ridges.

Here's a few links to help backup my advise and the direction I went with my bed.

https://www.mar-k.com/PDFs/Instructions/woodtest2.pdf

https://www.mar-k.com/PDFs/Instructi...alwoodtest.pdf

https://www.mar-k.com/PDFs/Instructi...testupdate.pdf

This one is the one that Stevee was referring to, I'd bet...

https://www.67-72chevytrucks.com/vbo...d.php?t=712931

[Steeveedee]

Yup, that's the one!