Projects Building a 57 Chevy Shop Truck

I started permanently bolting it all together using a stainless bolt kit



Real happy with the fitment of all these mismatched body panels



Indexed all the bolt heads, just because



I had to heat, pry and hammer the one remaining metal tailgate hinge out so I could clean that up and install new hinges, now I have a working tailgate.

 

I was having no luck finding any used 31x10.5's to try out but I did run into a friend at a cruise night that was changing rims on his ride.
He happened to have the same exact rims I had just bought (of course) with 275/60/15's. He shot me a decent price so I bought the rears, fronts were 15x7.5 and I had no use for those.



I wanted just a little taller tire to tuck the top of the tire behind the fender lip but these actually worked out pretty good.

 

Short video walk around

 

Finally decided on a stain color for the bed wood and ordered it, some brushes and urethane.
I was reading up on the acceptable humidity levels to stain and coat, it was 68% today so I didn't even set up the bed wood like I planned, hopefully it goes down by the time it all comes in.
I'm not a carpenter so I'm only going by the internet recommendations, don't want any curling boards.

 

You are applying finish to both sides right?

 

Yes and the stain too, want to totally encapsulate the wood.
I must have watched a hundred videos with a few different techniques to get the general idea of what to do. I'll be brushing the stain on, it seams like doing the swirly with a rag leaves blotchy sections, so the brush is for me.
I seen one video where the guy was pouring the urethane right on the board then using a bondo spreader to level it out, lots of different ways to skin a cat.

 

Sanded all the boards with 220



I started on the bottom of the boards to practice and to test how long to leave the stain on before wiping it off.
20 minutes far left board, around 12 on far right.



Next 4 boards I let the stain sit for 10 minutes, looking better



Practice is over, time to do the tops, I let the stain sit for 5 minutes and like it.



Some weird little shiny spots showed up in certain angles of light, they would disappear once wiped over with the stain rag but would return a few minutes later.
Tomorrow I'm starting the urethane regardless of those weirdos.

 

Well, the stupid spar urethane totally changed the color of my stain, I really liked that gray too and it took me awhile to decide on a color, all for nothing.



Tomorrow I'll do the tops and learn to live with it, I think I'll call it baby shit brown.

 

How about "Dark as Dog Shit"?

 

You’ll grow to like it.

 

But the gray would've been so much better, by the end of the week I hope to have it at least laying in the truck to see how it is. I figure I'll give it a few days drying time before bolting it down, I forget what the can says about how long it takes.

 

Is your finish oil based?

 

Yes, this is what I used

 

Is it true that in California you can only get water based products ?

 

Man, it did change the color a lot. I think it will still look good though.

 

I was going to suggest tinting the poly with gray oil base stain then spray it on. I’ve done this with brown tones of stain. But this morning after sleeping on it, I’m afraid that a gray toner would make the finish look milky.

Yes, there’s still oil poly available. However oil paints and real paint thinner isn’t.

 

Well what's done is done. I like using high solids, automotive clear for this reason. Goes on clear and stays that way. A lot of topcoats for wood are yellowish out of the can.

 

BTW, still looks nice IMO

 

I started out bright and early to avoid the late night final coat but had to spend a couple hours cleaning up my drips.


I ran the brush on the underside after every coat but still got got them, I guess it just keeps moving longer than I thought.

I was able to use a plastic putty knife and scrape them down.



Then I used a mineral spirits soaked rag to clean it up further



Hopefully wrap this up around 11 p.m. tonight, there's so much cottonwood fuzz flying around that I can't even open the garage door to sneak out to a cruise night in the meantime. Some yards look like they're snow covered.

 

Laid some of the boards in the bed to see how it goes with the paint or lack of and it just looks green/yellow/brown, if the truck was olive drab then it might look OK.



I thought maybe the l.e.d. lights might be effecting the color so I took a board outside, looks more brown and less green.

 

Then I decided to try some of the gray stain on the underside of the board to see if it did anything. At first I didn't see much of a difference, took it and another board outside for a side by side comparison, again I didn't see a drastic change.
Took it back inside and laid it over a couple of the other boards and it looked a little better.



So the next thing ya know I'm staining the tops of the boards



Still no where what I wanted but it's better



And a little side by side comparo of before and after