wroughtn_harv
Super Member
Good Morning Robert,
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The only downfall I see is they aint as pretty, since you can see all the various truck parts, frame, ect. )</font>
Wrong!
If you look at Lucy you can't see any frame.
One time at a fuel stop a couple of women working there started giving me a hard time about me calling Lucy a her. I looked out at her sitting there all pretty like and had to ask the girls. "You ever see a butt like that on a boy?"
End of conversation.
A flatbed is the most efficient platform for work on a truck. Where it gets less than pretty is when the fabricator doesn't complete the job.
With the fuel tanks going inside the frame rails we now have unencumbered places outside the frame to build tool boxes. If you look at Lucy closely you will see a box behind the rear wheels. That box goes all the way across the bed. The floor of the box is expanded metal. That's where I keep stuff like shovels, rakes, hoes, digging bars, posthole diggers, etc.
One thing that just burns me up on flatbeds is the way they don't try to get them as low as possible. I know it's easier and cheaper to build them stacked, channels to ride on top of the existing truck frame and then crossmembers on top of that. They just raised the bed four inches minimum. That sucks if you're wanting to work off the truck.
We're fortunate today because we can get a work truck with all the amenitities of a strut truck. Lucy is all business but has PW, PL, CD, A/C, Air Ride seat, 3 power ports, etc. We can buy a cab and chassis with the deluxe cab in a four door from three quarter ton up.
Building a good looking flatbed isn't rocket science. Heck, if I can do it with my limited skills surely more folks could do it.
I think what stops most folks is they don't like the squared off look that rookies do best. What I did to get around that is I used pipe sectioned and sheets of fourteen gauge and just the right amount of bondo.
There are some tricks. I learned from a bud who builds custom trailers to make a steel frame for the doors and then skin them in aluminum. I figured out that boat lights, the oval shaped ones you see on trucks and boat trailers, have a real simple formula for cutting them out. I use a two and a half inch hole saw on four and a quarter inch centers and then cut out what's in between. You can put them in the headache rack, Lucy has six up there, two for brake, turn, tail, two for back up, and two for load lights and those folks who've forgotten they still have their brights on when they come up on me. She also has six in the bed at the read recessed so they don't get their feeling's hurt when I get a little rough loading or backing, four for brake, tail, turn and two for back up.
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The only downfall I see is they aint as pretty, since you can see all the various truck parts, frame, ect. )</font>
Wrong!
If you look at Lucy you can't see any frame.
One time at a fuel stop a couple of women working there started giving me a hard time about me calling Lucy a her. I looked out at her sitting there all pretty like and had to ask the girls. "You ever see a butt like that on a boy?"
End of conversation.
A flatbed is the most efficient platform for work on a truck. Where it gets less than pretty is when the fabricator doesn't complete the job.
With the fuel tanks going inside the frame rails we now have unencumbered places outside the frame to build tool boxes. If you look at Lucy closely you will see a box behind the rear wheels. That box goes all the way across the bed. The floor of the box is expanded metal. That's where I keep stuff like shovels, rakes, hoes, digging bars, posthole diggers, etc.
One thing that just burns me up on flatbeds is the way they don't try to get them as low as possible. I know it's easier and cheaper to build them stacked, channels to ride on top of the existing truck frame and then crossmembers on top of that. They just raised the bed four inches minimum. That sucks if you're wanting to work off the truck.
We're fortunate today because we can get a work truck with all the amenitities of a strut truck. Lucy is all business but has PW, PL, CD, A/C, Air Ride seat, 3 power ports, etc. We can buy a cab and chassis with the deluxe cab in a four door from three quarter ton up.
Building a good looking flatbed isn't rocket science. Heck, if I can do it with my limited skills surely more folks could do it.
I think what stops most folks is they don't like the squared off look that rookies do best. What I did to get around that is I used pipe sectioned and sheets of fourteen gauge and just the right amount of bondo.
There are some tricks. I learned from a bud who builds custom trailers to make a steel frame for the doors and then skin them in aluminum. I figured out that boat lights, the oval shaped ones you see on trucks and boat trailers, have a real simple formula for cutting them out. I use a two and a half inch hole saw on four and a quarter inch centers and then cut out what's in between. You can put them in the headache rack, Lucy has six up there, two for brake, turn, tail, two for back up, and two for load lights and those folks who've forgotten they still have their brights on when they come up on me. She also has six in the bed at the read recessed so they don't get their feeling's hurt when I get a little rough loading or backing, four for brake, tail, turn and two for back up.