Wood for pick up bed

[Keith 66]

Boatbuilders hat on now! Woods suitable & not for jobs like this.
Keruing, hard wearing & durable, pinky red colour, prone to splintering, if you get splinters from this they always go septic.
IPE a south american hardwood often sold as decking, its hard & strong & a pleasant deep golden brown colour also highly durable.
Iroko is Ok but durability exposed to fresh water wont be brilliant.
Ash, classed as non durable & will rot as soon as it smells rain!
Oak, full of tannic acid which will eat your steel.
Elm, durable but very hard to get, does not like being wet & dry & will rot. It also warps all over the place.
Cedar is rot proof but too soft & will get damaged.
Pitch pine, If you can find some this was used in shipbuilding & construction & is lovely stuff if you can find old stuff.
Jarrah, An australian hardwood that is a deep red. can be worked with carbide tipped tools but otherwise hard going.
Teak is lovely but overkill for a truck bed, It has reached such a huge price that it really isnt economical to use it for a job like this.

For what its worth & ease of obtaining it i would go for Ipe decking.

 

[stuvy]

Bit of trailer decking and use it as a Landy should be used. Don’t get this fashion of owning a defender and not working the life out of it. They’re uncomfortable, thirsty, sluggish crap, and that’s coming from an enthusiast!

its a disco and certainly thirsty being a v8 but not uncomfortable like my defender

 

[stuvy]

Boatbuilders hat on now! Woods suitable & not for jobs like this.
Keruing, hard wearing & durable, pinky red colour, prone to splintering, if you get splinters from this they always go septic.
IPE a south american hardwood often sold as decking, its hard & strong & a pleasant deep golden brown colour also highly durable.
Iroko is Ok but durability exposed to fresh water wont be brilliant.
Ash, classed as non durable & will rot as soon as it smells rain!
Oak, full of tannic acid which will eat your steel.
Elm, durable but very hard to get, does not like being wet & dry & will rot. It also warps all over the place.
Cedar is rot proof but too soft & will get damaged.
Pitch pine, If you can find some this was used in shipbuilding & construction & is lovely stuff if you can find old stuff.
Jarrah, An australian hardwood that is a deep red. can be worked with carbide tipped tools but otherwise hard going.
Teak is lovely but overkill for a truck bed, It has reached such a huge price that it really isnt economical to use it for a job like this.

For what its worth & ease of obtaining it i would go for Ipe decking.

Thanks for your reply

will be looking at iroko

 

[Shiny Steve]

i have a trailer load of larch arriving soon if you still fancy going down that route.

 

[Shox Dr]

I used whatever its called (I forget) on HGV trailers etc. Its been down about 6yrs now.


Its been sat for the last 6mths because of my injuries. A quick jet wash makes it look a bit better, but not much the idea was so it looked original. (Originally they used pitch pine, either painted the same colour as the body work, or left plain.

 

[James1979]

They use oak on the decks of multi cats for the high friction. I think they also use it on low loader beds for the same reason.
Edit: a multicat:

 

[Shiny Steve]

oak should be ok as long as you use stainless fittings and any steel it is in contact with is painted. it's doing a lovely job of turning my little sawmill black atm.

 

[Dcal]

I used whatever its called (I forget) on HGV trailers etc. Its been down about 6yrs now.
View attachment 280345

Its been sat for the last 6mths because of my injuries. A quick jet wash makes it look a bit better, but not much the idea was so it looked original. (Originally they used pitch pine, either painted the same colour as the body work, or left plain.

That will be Keruing then.

 

[Shox Dr]

That will be Keruing then.

Could be I forget the name

 

[James1979]

Is iroko the one that’s bad if you breath the dust and the splinters are really bad?

or am I thinking of another one.

 

[Dcal]

Yes, it's horrible stuff.

 

[bigegg]

Take a walk around your local "laminate flooring" place and look at their "real wood" planks.
Comes ready finished, in a range of colours.
Cheap enough, as well.
Oak with a Pixy resin finish isn't going to damage steel.

 

[Hitch]

Buffalo board...
Or how about Greenheart?

 

[northwest]

Bamboo is not bad either, you can get engineered planks of it. Stands up well to moisture.

 

[Dcal]

Buffalo board...
Or how about Greenheart?

Greenheart is tough, heavy, not affected by water and looks well, but will split for fun if it's cut into thin planks.

 

[outofthefire]

Keeps my face warm

That's not a beard, 5 o'clock shadow

 

[stuvy]

I looked at keruing when a truck dropped some bits off today I don’t like it

I really don’t like buffalo board

bamboo isn’t what I’m after either

 

[stuvy]

Take a walk around your local "laminate flooring" place and look at their "real wood" planks.
Comes ready finished, in a range of colours.
Cheap enough, as well.
Oak with a Pixy resin finish isn't going to damage steel.

when I was building defenders over 10 years ago we used laminate flooring

 

[stuvy]

As the truck bed will have a motor cross bike from time to time or any thing I buy from eBay in the bed I want really wood about 25mm think

I will reinforce it underneath

@Shiny Steve wjat would oak be like against aluminium, I could use ali as a spaced against the oak and achieve the finish I want then

 

[Ali]

Is iroko the one that’s bad if you breath the dust and the splinters are really bad?

or am I thinking of another one.

That’s greenheart re the splinters. Re the dust that’s all of them, a few tropical ones a bit nastier than others.

Saw some of that T&G extruded plastic hollow section decking in the merchants today, surprisingly realistic wood effect, it’s come on a long way recently.