Thread: spotted gum for truck tray????

Originally Posted by eli szoko

I have bought a light truck and the wood holding the tray up is all rotten.It has 4x2 then 4x1 with a steel frame and someone has welded a plate over the bords when they stated faling apart.So i will replace them, i am thinking of using spotted gum as i am on a budget and i have some air dried suff lying around.
What do you thik????

Excellent choice. Just make sure, for your purposes, there is no sapwood included.

Regards
Paul

Good point.
dont have any air dryed 4x1 or any spotty logs at hand, was going to use green blood wood and grey box.

dont use spotty as the deck, to slipery.

bloodwood would be to brittle for mot aplications, box is a good choice.

Ye if i had more box logs i would go for that.It has a heavy 2-3mm plate over the bords anyway.
Do you think if i find some ironbark ect as there is not mutch grey box around i could do away with the plate that was added when the bords fell apart,would save some wait.
still have some desishions to make.While i degreas underneeth.
Will have to show of a pic or 2 of the beast.

G'day. We used ti suply Lyons body works with Spotted Gum T&G boards for their ute trays.
Oil the grooves on the boards before fitting them and then oil the top of the boards.

The tray will last great and it isn't slippery.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

dont use spotty as the deck, to slipery.

bloodwood would be to brittle for mot aplications, box is a good choice.

Carl

I have to confess a bias for spotted gum, but I wouldn't hesitate to use it for a truck tray. It does have a greasiness which can make it difficult to glue, but I wouldn't describe it a slippery. In fact it is used as a flooring timber. To put some perspective on the issue, I don't think any timber is as slippery as steel or aluminium.

If I had a hesitation in recommending it for a truck floor it would be that spotty is too good for a truck floor. Having said that it is probably more durable than most timbers in that it is hard and dense and very resistant to knocks (which is why it is used extensively for tool handles.) The Izod resistence is one of the highest. This means you can chuck heavy objects, such as the odd car gearbox, on it without breaking through the boards.

It is indeed a member of the bloodwood family, which has mainly been reclassified as Corymbia instead of Eucalypt, but it is probably the complete antithesis of brittle. I read recently that it has more in keeping with the angophoras (rough barked apple, smooth barked apple etc) than the eucalypts. Angophoras too were once lumped together amongst the eucalypts.

Eli

Ironbark is ok, but it can be brittle. However in your application I think it would be fine.

Grey box and white box (I can't tell the difference) are ok but my limited experience is that they are not that stable and "move" quite a bit. I used box once for the edge trim on some kitchen benches. That was a mistake. I also used it to build a spiral staircase in conjunction with ironbark. That was misguided more than a mistake.

I think the trick with a truck floor is to be able to slide the boards in a chanel so that if shrinkage occurs you can simply add more timber to the tray. This will depend on how your tray has been built. Post some pix as you mentioned in your last post.

I did have some ironbark I dressed and made into tongue and groove boards. It was intended for a ute tray (a very flash tray I might add), but that didn't eventuate and I made a ute box out of the boards instead.

It is significant that Trevor has supplied spotty in the past commercially for ute trays, but not much help to you if you don't have any. I endored it's use because I thought in your original post you mentioned having it lying around.

Perhaps you are like me and over-estimate how much material you have and under-estimate how much time it will take.

Regards
Paul