1950 Chevy Pickup Classic Truck - Wood Bed Install - Hickory Dickory Deck

Now there is a nice pattern to go off of and we can cut it into our nice chunk of hickory with a jig saw.

The hickory is pretty tough so we went slowly to prevent splintering it...

...We didn't cut right on the line, instead we left just a little overage so we can come back and hand-finish the edge.

We used a wood file and some 400-grit sandpaper to finish our cut.

After getting the side boards fitted we set the other boards in place and marked the gas filler location. We used a hole-saw chucked in a hand drill to make the hole. The only reason we needed to do this now was the filler neck sat a little high and was holding the center board up.

With all the boards and stainless strips set into place we started marking all the new hole locations...

...Because we are converting to a seven board setup we will need to drill all new holes for the stainless strips.

After using a centerpunch to indicate where bed bolts needed to go, we drilled 42 holes (seven strips with six holes).

The front bolts that hold the bed assembly to the frame stick up above the crossmember.

A little finesse with a -inch drum sander chucked into an pneumatic die grinder and the relief was cut to size in a jiffy.