Posted by Clint Dixon on Sunday, March 23, 2003 at 12:13PM :
I have been dismantling some of the pickup box parts on my '47 WDX to get some reference photos for Dave Maher's 1st series box reproduction project. (Which, by the way, appears to be dead-nuts accurate in my opinion. Keep up the good work Dave!) 75% of my original wood had been well preserved through the years thanks to steel plates bolted to the floor many years ago. I took advantage of an opportunity to measure the thickness of the wood with a micrometer. I continually read an average thickness of .840 on this old wood, or about 27/32". The extremes of my measurements have shown .815 at the low end and .850 at the high end. This wood is dry from the low humidity all winter. I could see it maybe swelling to 7/8", or a little thicker, over the summer months.
As an added note, there averages 2-3 boards between each skid strip. Apparently these thin pieces were originally edge glued together to make up boards of necessary width. Most pieces appear to have been laid staggered in a cup-up cup-down fashion to reduce warpage between the skid strips. Some of the narrower pieces are only an inch or so in width. The sides of all of the individual pieces, in the center of the resulting boards, are parallel (uniform width through their entire length) but in most cases the resulting boards do not lay with these joints exactly parallel to the skid stips. In other words, the side pieces taper in width resulting from the boards being ripped to size and routed for the skid strips to fit properly. I have seen several other early trucks with the same construction methods used on their bed floor boards.
Clint
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