Buddy of mine wants to rebuild the floor in his stakebody as it’s getting pretty well “ventilated” in some areas. It looks like 2 x 6 T&G material and I’m looking for suggestions on replacement wood.
Should I stick w/ T&G?
Pressure treated or not? I worry about PT against the steel frame.
thanks
BB
A rear addition provides a small-scale example of how to frame efficiently.
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Replies
Ipe or Locust...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
If it's going to get beat up, I'd stick to pressure treated. use a strip of epdm between the wood and the steel frame. It's be a good time to coat the frame with something lie POR15 too. I think White Oak was pretty common bed floor, but I don't think I'd spend the money on a work truck.
Here white oak is about the same $$ as treated, much more user friendly, and strong, durable and decay resistant.
The only white oak we can get without special ordering is prefinished flooring. It's odd too because it's such a common tree here.
Check with a local saw mill or woodmizer mill group.The worry about white oak and steel is myth and legend.Tannins are now being used as an alternative treatment for iron/steel to inhibit corrosion (rather than toxic chromium based inhibitors). Ferrous metals exposed to the tannins in white oak are actually protected from detrimental corrosion. This is cutting edge material science.The contact with ferrous metal does blacken the oak, but does not hasten decay.
Thank you for a professional reply that isn't based on hooey. I too have used Quercus Alba in great quantities with both Galv. and carbon steel fastners. About north of 100 thousand pallets. Funny how the reg. nails never caused the pallet to fail at the surrounding wood, even when left out in the weather for yrs. and yrs.
Ever try to pull a pallet apart? Rust or not, it ain't an easy task. I once made a load (720) wrong, and had to tear them apart and remake them..on MY time, yeah...rust and rot, myth.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
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Did you shellac them too ????
No, but being young and unwise, I culled all the nice Black walnut out of the pallet lumber piles and took it home and made tables and stuff.
It was all green, and pretty much self destructed in short order. Woodworking 101, wood must be at least air dried for furniture indoors..(G)Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
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I just reread my post, and dang, if that didn't sound like I knew what I was talking about. ;o)
There is no saw mill near me that I know of for atleast an hour and half drive in all directions that I know. If I were buying a flatbed load of sawn lumber it would be worth it, but it would take me a lifetime to use it all. If I had one local, I would have no problem buying from them, it's just not practical for me. I just don't use enough lumber.
If it's a common tree stop going to lumberyards and start going to sawmills.. Price for white oak is 80 cents a bd.ft. While most lumberyards charge 4-5 dollars.
Yes that is the percentage of mark-up in wood from the sawmill to the lumberyard!
If you'd like to know any other prices you can either go to http://www.hmr.com or just ask me..
"If you'd like to know any other prices ...just ask me."Roar!
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I wonder if he knows what Jim the sawmill guy down my road gets for 4/4 quatersawn Sycamore?
Or 1x6x16' Poplar horse fence boards.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
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Ask, he will tell you!
Ya think he might know the price of cow manure over my way?
Back in my good old boy days, I had a F350 stake body dump that I put rough sawn white oak in. It had these metal slats that were used to hold the boards down. Can't really remember, but I think I may have let the metal slats into the oak. Oiled it with motor oil. Not recommending that, but it lasted fine the next 5 years I had it and was not showing deteriation when I sold it.
You see a lot of lowboy equipment trailers with oak floor boards - presumably because of oak's strength. BTW - I thought the tannins in wood was actually a rust inhibitor????
take a regular nail, drive it into a piece of oak and leave it outside for a while.. that will show you that the tannins in white oak attack metal. Or you can read about it..
This article is heavy on chemistry, but here you go:http://www.bentham.org/mats/openaccessarticles/mats%201-3/0006MATS.pdf
Sorry - I didn't read all the posts before I postd to you...
BS, thats why shipping pallets ( GMA 40 x 48 industy standard breed) are made of oak, both red and white and rated to a certain weight.
You think if it was a rampant issue it would still be used all these years?Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
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You need to back up there, Sphere. 1st, have you established that he, (you know who I mean), knows the difference between white oak, and balsa wood.But still I'd rather debate with the white oak it self, it's easier to reason with.
The average life of a GMA pallet is under 8 months.. and oak is not the only wood that can be used in a GMA pallet.. ash, maple, hackberry, etc.. are also allowed.. Plus if it's not a GMA standard pallet virtually any wood can be used including pine..
And you are still wrong about the nails and W.Oak, so why dig your hole deeper? Take a 5 year old pallet apart and get back to me. Sure the nails rust, but the wood don't rot because of that, the heads will come off before nail withdrawl even thinks of happening.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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"If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt
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white oak
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I'm sorry, much as I like white oak, it is not a wood that should be next to the steel frame rails of a truck. The Tannic acids in oak will attack the steel and cause it to rust the resulting rust will form an acid that will cause the wood to decay. Salt on roads will compound the problem..
True - I'll take ash then- or locust
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No way on ash, it's really low on the rot resistance scale.
I made my old Toyota bed with white oak and never had a problem with it rusting the frame any more than regular rusting from age would have. And like PT, just use an isolation memebrane or rubber bushing on the bolts.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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That's fine as long as you use stainless steal hardware.. regular hardware will disolve from the tannic acids and cause rot in the wood. ..
Maybe your White Oak does.
I put the bed on in '85, the truck had 200 miles on it. I traded it in on another truck in '94 and the owner of the Toyota dealer took it to his mountain cabin, he loved the body so much. I used galv. carriage bolts. Not a spec of rust or rot anywhere to be seen. I revarnished the stake sides about every two yrs, the bed was au natural.
Remember just because you witnessed something once, does not mean it holds true for everyone everywhere.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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Thanks all, as always there's good info and more than one solution offered.
The truck belongs to a masonry company, mostly material on skids or bagged but it'll get plenty beat up when back in use. I don't think strength will be an issue based on the number of rails on the frame, spans are only about a foot.
There are plenty of sources for my statement.
The tannins in white oak are what cause it to be so durable. The tannins in white oak react to steel/iron and cause rust which also causes the wood to rot..
If you were lucky enough not to have knocked off any of the galvanizing on your fasters when you installed them and tightened them then that's what protected you from that problem..
I was thinking more about this on the job yesterday and mentioned it to the guys.All of us remember the older trucks with wood beds having white oak. Maybe it is more a function of the kind of salt used on roads in your quarter of the country that you are seeing cause that rusting. edited for speeling
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Edited 8/27/2009 7:46 am ET by Piffin
Yes avoid Pressure treated and White oak for the reason given. (it reacts to the steel and will cause the iron to rust and the resulting acid will cause the wood to rot!)
If strength is your primary concern go to a sawmill and buy ash. If not, buy Pine. Varnish it well.
We had two stake bodied trucks when I was growing up. One came with white oak planking and we installed the same on the "new" one. Hauled a LOT of logs, tractors, and weekly trash runs for all the neighbors with those things. Only problem was that the bed on the planks we installed weren't high enough above the tires, so with a good load the tires would rub. Eventually wore right through the planks!
The metal frame was painted but I can't imagine that the oak would have eaten too far into the steel.
I am not a scientist Bob, but I will tell you that when I was a kid we had three wooden kegs of square nails in our not so dry barn. As far as I know those nails were metal as were the rings around them. They were there until I grew up in that same ole keg.
Kentucky bourbon (is there any other kind?) is aged in wooden kegs with those same metal bands around them.
Those kegs are both made of quarter sawn white oak and they dont rot. My grandfather had an old Chevy that had white oak (not quarter sawn) bed slats in it. White oak splits or shakes are NAILED down and have lasted for generations without rotting.
Please dont take our word for it. Just use the last thousand or so years of trial and error. Science isnt always what it is cracked up to be. :=) But then heck, even science agrees with this one.
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end,
being Italian, a wine and balsamic vinegar lover, I was kind of skeptical on the oak debate. They leave the stuff in barrels (esp vinegar) for a long time. BTW, we use those old bourbon barrels to make port.
Got a source for locust ($25 per 2x6x12) and oak $15. Now it's up to the customer how much he wants to spend.
Tannins react with iron to form "ferric tannate" complexes. They are blue-black in color. It's basically a dye stain - a colored complex that "sits" in wood, largely minding it's own business... "Rot" in wood is generally mildew, fungi, or slime molds. Some of these produce a blue, brown or black stain as they consume the nutrients released by dissolving wood cell walls, which, of course, weakens the structural integrity of the whole.They are two completely different phenomena, although each one is superficially manifest as "colored wood." One does not necessarily "lead" to the other, either neither is protective from the other... -tEdited aside - I made a mixed white oak and mahogany planter box about 10 years ago, just to see how resistant the wood would be (take that, spell check...). No finish - filled directly with soil, left outside in the elements, dovetail joinery to buy it some extra time. Finally tossed it in the burn pile this year. The wood was fine, but the constant moisture on the inside put so much of a cup across the boards that the bottom kept falling out. So, based on that, maybe a dirt-filled white oak pickup bed only has 10 years lifespan...
Edited 8/28/2009 12:29 pm by webted
Echoing the white oak recommends. I would also, as others suggested, check into black locust. No shortage of it in New England - stuff is tough as nails, nearly rotproof and cheap.