The bed had been painted three or four times that I could see, and at least one of those times was done with a brush so it had a thick layer of flaking paint on the exterior. Earlier in the project phase I used a 6,000 psi pressure washer to remove most of the flaking paint, but there is much more paint and rust to be removed. Since I don’t have a large enough sand blaster, I’ll be removing it with high speed wire wheels. While this may not produce show quality results, it will work perfectly for my purposes. It’s a long brutal process, but I was able to grind the loose paint flakes and a lot of the surface rust off the bed and begin with the primer.
Once a good coat of primer was applied, I used coarse fiberglass filler to fill in the various small rust holes before applying the last coat of primer.
When everything was dry, I mixed up a batch of satin black industrial enamel with a bit of thinner and catalyst/hardener. I purposefully did not use full gloss because it would show every little dent and ding that the bed was riddled with. The satin finish would not necessarily conceal much, but it would look better than a gloss finish. I gave it at least two good coats of the satin black.
Well she’s certainly coming along. In fact, I couldn’t resist installing my period-correct marker lights on the bed, as well as a new set of mud flaps. It almost looks like a vintage rat rod dump truck…
I think at this point, we’re on the downhill side of things and the project will be winding up soon. Next we’ll address the cab and I’m sure a few other things will come up. Until then…
Nicholas Fluhart 
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