Going to be building a flatbed for a 58 dodge 1/2 ton in the near future, I was wondering if .083 2x3 rectangle tube would be heavy duty enough or if u should go up to .120. Plan is to do the perimeter in 2x3 with 2x2 crossmembers and then wood on top of those. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
1/2 ton truck as previously stated. Won't be a dump. To be honest I don't think the truck will be seeing any kind of heavy loads (girlfriends wheels), truck has a nasty flatbed welded onto it now that was made of some gigantic channel iron that is just ugly as hell and completely overkill so it needs to be redone and made to be bolted on.
lighter the better then. i've built a few, a couple for show that dumped kept them light duty. the bed i built for my '39 gmc i built using 3" channel around the perimeter 2" square tube cross rails 1.5" oak deck, will carry way more than the truck can handle wish i had built it lighter. if you look at how light factory flat beds are, and look at the size trucks they put them on, and consider they haul loads everyday it should be easy to gage how heavy you will need for your application.
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