Turn bed boards over?

[gulffishin]

Hey guys, the previous owner of my truck installed a wood kit, but did not put any finish on it. The top of the boards are pretty weathered and splintering, but the bottoms look pretty good. I was wondering if it is possible to turn the bed boards over and reinstall them with the "good side" facing out and put spar varnish on them. I know that I will have to cut the grooves for the strips and some of the holes will have to be re drilled, but does this sound like it would work?

Has anyone else tried to do this?

[CJ Loeffelholz]

Originally Posted by gulffishin

Hey guys, the previous owner of my truck installed a wood kit, but did not put any finish on it. The top of the boards are pretty weathered and splintering, but the bottoms look pretty good. I was wondering if it is possible to turn the bed boards over and reinstall them with the "good side" facing out and put spar varnish on them. I know that I will have to cut the grooves for the strips and some of the holes will have to be re drilled, but does this sound like it would work?

Has anyone else tried to do this?

I've never seen that done, but off hand I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work. The potential downsides may include a weakened edge of the board since you have a dado cut on both sides. I'd be a little worried that setting something on the bed might cause the boards to check along the cut line. That tendency, of course, would vary depending on the type of wood.

As an alternative, I might recommend having the boards' s current tops drum sanded, taking off the minimum possible to clean them up. I really think that if it's possible to sand the topside clean, you'd be far better off doing that for the reason mentioned above.

[gulffishin]

That's a good point, I did not think of the boards being too thin to dado them on both sides.

I have a belt sander, maybe I'll just try to spruce them up a little with that till I get a new wood kit.