Posted by Clint Dixon [172.69.17.38] on Wednesday, May 06, 2026 at 07:11:25 :
In Reply to: Bed Board Dimensions posted by Doug Ripley [172.71.22.184] on Tuesday, May 05, 2026 at 11:31:48 :
The boards from the factory were not all necessarily the same from truck to truck. There was not a tight tolerance held on the dimensions. In fact, most boards on the early trucks were cut from large sheets that were composed of mainly thinner boards edge glued together and then the final boards ripped from these sheets. The thinner boards were all random width. I have seen them as thin as 1-1/2" all the way up to the entire 7-5/8" in width.
These thin boards that made up the sheets appear to have been basically scrap left over from some other project(s), maybe from projects that had nothing to do with truck building. The boards that were cut from these sheets and used as bed boards for the Power-Wagon were not necessarily cut parallel to the individual narrower boards that were edge glued together. I have seen the glued joints of the thin boards up to a 10 degree angle from parallel to the final boards that were cut. Those edge glued narrower pieces also were sometimes alternately flipped top-to-bottom to reduce cupping, i.e.: cup up, then cup down, then cup up, etc.
I would would recut the boards narrower to assure that as they swell and shrink that they will not touch and be retained directly by the shanks of the mounting bolts through the skid strips.
Also, the distance of any rabbet from the outside edge of any board (rabbet width) is not as important as the uncut distance from rabbet to rabbet across each board. You want the boards to float somewhat between the skid strips as they swell and shrink and not "pinch" tight against the skid strips. There should always be a slight gap between the "wall" of the rabbet and the edge of the skid strip under all conditions.
Junior