i haven't been on here much in the last couple of years because I have been spending my project time on my 48 Willys CJ2A. [VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zMMq4fESks[/VIDEO] I still have my 59 and it's still my daily driver. Since I've had it the bed has been a mess. Original wood was all rotted out. It had a couple of layers of plywood on top of the original rotted wood, then the previous owner knew someone that did diamond plate so he put a bunch of diamond plate scrap pieces on the plywood when it rotted all hodge podge. Just screwed down with wood screws. When I got it I threw another sheet of plywood over the top of all that. An ugly mess, but it worked, I still used the truck to haul stuff, but I've been thinking about fixing it for 5 years. Finally this summer I ordered a kit from Mar-K and I'm in the middle of getting it painted and installed. i forgot to take any before shots, but here are some pics of when I was just getting everything torn down. Here you can see a scrap of the original wood. Here's what the metal strips looked like when I got them torn out. Had my wife and kids help lift the bed off to reveal the rusty frame. I cleaned up the frame with a wire brush on my angle grinder, then painted it with POR 15. The wood kit that I bought from MAR K is the yellow pine. I still use this truck as a truck and didn't want any exotic wood that I would cry over if it got dented. I also wanted some type of finish that would look good, but also be easy to touch up. I decided to go with tung oil. I bought a couple of quarts of the Pure Tung Oil from the Real Milk Paint Co. I got the DARK version of the tung oil rather than the natural color. Yesterday I rubbed many coats of tung oil onto the wood. I cut it 50/50 with mineral spirits and poured it on, then rubbed it in, leaving the wood wet. I would wait a 15 - 45 minutes until it looked like the wood was drying out and then rub some more on. I probably did this 5 times. I forgot to say that before I started on the flats of the boards, I stood them on end in a bucket of tung oil for several hours so the oil could wick up the end fibers. At the end of the day yesterday I waited about an hour after the last application, then wiped the boards dry to set over night. Today I went out and put two more applications of the tung oil on, then after an hour, wiped the boards dry again. Here is how that look right now. Here's a close up, but the color is a little off in the phone photo. The real color is more like the previous photo. I really like how the boards turned out. i hope that the tung oil finish will hold up. I have no experience with it, or any type of wood finish. I just didn't want any type of varnish or clear coat that would peal. I'm waiting for a couple of cross sills then I will put it all back together and get some finish product photos up.
bed done Got the thing put together today. I'm really happy with how it turned out. My wife likes it too!
Bed Wood Great job there ! . You'll be well pleased with it for decades , just remember anytime it begins to look dry just thin out some more Tong Oil and brush it on......
