Alternative pick up truck bed strips

I am on a real tight budget and am in the process of rebuilding the bed of my truck. I am not worried about the truck being original. I picked up some used oak boards that I will plane down to remove stain and varnish. These boards are not the correct width so I will use more boards and strips than the original set. I am looking for an alternate(cheaper) bed strip to make or purchase. Any ideas? My truck has the long bed 89 3/4".
Thank you,
Otto
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Hey Otto, I used a set of roof strips off of a wagon with a roof rack years ago it was a short box but worked well. No one knew but me.

 

Aluminum bar stock with 1/4" tapered head machine bolts will work. Remember to leave room between the boards for expansion - contraction or the boards will split or buckle.

 

Aluminum (as said above) or cold rolled stainless steel flat stock will work great. If you want to invest the time, both polish up great, too!

 

Im useing roof strips from a 60s Belvadear wagon, stainless and look made to fit my shortened box. I got them for 10 bux at the local U- pull it.

 

Thanks for the great ideas guys. Unfortunately they will probably cost more than ordering actual bed strips unless I stumble upon a source for the material. Home Depot wants $26.00 for 1/8"x 1 1/4" x 8' aluminum and more for steel.
Thanks again for the suggestions,
Otto

 

Home depot is NOT a steel supply store. The small selection of steel products they have is a converience deal, more for emergency use than anything. Contact a REAL steel supply company and I'm sure the price will be much less.

Frank

 

Try trucksusa.com cheapest i could find...jobob

 

This is a followup on the add, i gave you correction is John@trucksusa.net,He has several different strips. He is also the one that supplys strips to other dealers. Jobob

 

There's a metal strip called termination bar used to hold down the edge of sheet rubber on commercial roofing. I used it years ago and it looks like the expensive show strips made out of aluminum. Can be polished too if desired. Already drilled and ready to go and comes in 10 foot lengths. Recessed in the center with raised beads to the outside.

P.S. I sell it where I work and will double check the price tomorrow. Should be less than 50 cents a foot...........

 

You could also try boat keel strips. I don't know how much they cost, but they are shaped a lot like bed strips and available in many lengths in either br***, aluminum, or stainless.

 

50 bucks plus shipping through LMC for long bed (60-66) Chevys if I read it right.

http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/cbe/full.aspx?Page=20

 

I think the name of the place is metalsuperstore.com they have a store for sheet metal somewhere in Melrose Park and another for stock in Elk Grove Village, worth looking at either way as your imagination can run wild looking at metal tubing types, if you cant find it google it under metal tubing suppliers in Chicago, for steel you want Wexler in Chi town all kinds of stock.

 

Forget Home Depot, they're too expensive. Go to a s**** metal yard, I just bought a 20' piece of cold roll steel angle iron 1/8 X 2 X 2 for $20 dollars, new at the steel yard. I would have cost $40.00 at Home Depot.

 

I saw a post somewhere in which a guy used bedstrips he made from hardwood. He used a darker wood than the floorboards and the contrasting colors looked very nice.

 

I have been researching also and just had some walnut wood gave to me so when you mentioned using hardwood for strips it made me think about buying the trex boards and rip them down for strips with countersunk holes.

 

http://www.metalsdepot.com/products/alum2.phtml?page=flat 1/8 x 1x6 ft is 4.35 each here

 

I used 2" steel purchased from a steel supplier in my 59 longbox. I don't remember exactly the cost since that was at least 10 years ago but it was way cheaper than the reproduction strips.

 

Who needs bed strips?
I ran my bed wood on sleepers, just like a deck!

 

Since you appear to be in or near Chicago check out the McMaster-Carr hardware supply house.

 

I would use termination bar for rubber roofing

 

+1 on FrankenRodz deck

I just used planks , no strips , it works fine (it's a working deck)

 

If you own a table saw you could rip a grove on the edge and do a mortis and tenon. It would look like Frankenrodz but would be solid between the boards.