The Real Process Behind Furniture Grade Wood Truck Beds | Custom 1967 C10

Hey everybody, we are in the paint booth and we got some wood here that we're going to be finishing for a project with Louise and we're going to get all these sprayed and then we're going to get a sealer down and then from there we got to come back and then we got to reand everything again and then from there glazing and different techniques [music] on on how we do that and create the look we're after. So anyways, follow along. It's going to get busy. You can kind of take a look at the cuts that it takes to get super [music] tight and creative to go around some of these wheel tubs. And so it it takes a minute. Everything's been prepped. Everything's been sanded. Got it down to about a 220 grit. And from there, we're going to start working on the finishing. We've blown it all off. And then we're going to basically at this point, we're not going to do just a standard clear finish. A lot of people just put a clear finish on it. And that looks really good, too. But because of the wood is kind of marbleized and I I do like the marbling of the wood. That's kind of why I selected it. But I also want to control how the contrast looks. And so what I've want to do is I want to take the wood that I like. I want to blend it in with the interior of the truck. We've we've kind of played around with a couple different stains. [music] You can kind of see, you know, there's a couple different colors here. As I played with one has a little bit more red in it. I'm not going to use this color here, but I'm going to start with [music] this color here. So, we're going to go ahead and uh stain all this stuff up. I'm probably not, if you look at me, does does it look like I'm going to be staining? But I come help and and work [music] with Luis on the steps. Luis has been helping me finish all the wood beds. And so, he's gotten pretty good where I can kind of turn a lot of this over to him. So, um if we were to take a look, I mean, and we [music] were to stain something, but you can see just right now how it's, you know, changing the wood color, obviously, like stain does. And then from there, we'll inspect [music] everything, make sure we like it. And then from there, we're going to put a sealer over it. And why do we put a sealer over it? Well, anytime you apply water to wood, it's going to kind of raise the grain a little bit, and it's going to cause [music] it to get furry and fuzzy, and it's not going to actually feel very good and smooth. As we apply the stain, as [music] we put a sealer on it, it kind of seals all that in, creates a a barrier, but we can kind of sand that sealer to smooth all the fibers of the wood back out, lay everything back down, and get [music] a nice smooth finish. So, we're going to go ahead and get involved with Louise. And then we're going to get a sealer down. And then from there, we got to come back and then we got to reand everything again. And then from there, we're going to go into some more steps, glazing, and different [music] techniques on on how we do that and and create the look we're after. So, anyways, we're going to get started here. All right. So, a little update. We got the stain done. Uh we've sprayed the sealer. We've got all that stuff done. We're going to let it dry for a little bit. So, we'll probably give it about a good 30 minutes just dry time. Leave the [music] paint booth on. Let the air kind of blow across it just to help it. Uh and once that is dry, then we're going to go through and sand it all. And uh and so as soon as we get in and start sanding it, we'll we'll get you in and kind of show you what that looks like. All six sides of the board have to be finished. So all your end grains, they got to be sealed up, too. That is kind of like a wick for water. So it, you know, you don't get a lot of penetration through the surface, but all the end grains is where the water's going to come in. and that's where it's going to start messing up your wood. So, you want to make sure all six sides of your board are finished. So, we've got them stained. We've got them finished all six sides. When we go to sand it, you'll notice that there's like a a little residue, chalky residue that's going to kind of build up. It's not really important that we get that all off. We'll kind of wipe it a little bit. By the time we actually put the other products on it, it kind of makes all that disappear and melts away. So, we'll let this dry for a little bit and then we'll be back in getting the sealer sand, making sure it's nice and smooth. Then we're going to glaze it and then we're going to top coat it. So, we still got a few more steps to go. Stay tuned. All right, guys. So, we're in the paint mixing room. Uh we're actually going to make some something called a glaze. And so, it's a product that will will kind of start to blend the colors a little bit more. It allow us to control some additional colors we we want to put into it. And on this particular bed, uh I want to do some antiquing on it. And so got some gloves on because uh this stuff stains pretty easily. So we've got some um natural glaze here, which essentially is is kind of kind of clear. We got to stir this up, but but it's not it's not really if I was to wipe this on the stain right now wouldn't actually do a whole lot. We'll get this mixed up and and then we're going to start mixing some colors. So unfortunately, this is not something you can easily go purchase and buy. Uh, a lot of the stuff we do here, colors [music] and the look and everything we're after, a lot of it, uh, is custom custom [music] mixed here. So, these are also colors that are kind of hard to just go by. Kind of expensive, but not not terrible. Um, but [music] we're going to we're going to make some glaze. Looking for kind of a brownish kind of a dark gold brown bronze color. [music] So, it'll take us a bit to get that. But you can watch. All right. What do we need? We need if I get anything on my clothes, my wife is going to be pissed. But you can kind of see this consistency. Okay, that's good. And uh it all, you know, it'll you can see we're we're already starting to change. We're going to need a little bit of the that red color, that red oxide. We're going to need a little bit of that. Now, what we're going to be hoping to do is we're actually This consistency is a little bit too watery for me. Although, it's very common to see glaze uh this watery for the type of look we're after. We're going to change the thickness of the body so that we can [music] actually get a look we're after. It might be like a bright red. >> All right, let's use that here. I'll just This is thick, which is actually good cuz So, this is nice and thick. Uh, which is good cuz I actually want to thicken this up pretty well. I could add black to darken it up, but I don't. That would actually go a little bit too quickly. And I want to [music] get to a nice uh dark like this dark brown with a little hint of gold in it. So, we [music] got some leather we're trying to match. We'll have to probably add a little bit of this red just to help [music] us some. But these are like universal tinting colors. And so they're really um these are really potent. Just adding a little bit of that. We'll change this look. Now, we don't weigh this out. This is a product that is kind of a one and done for us for that customer. So, we'll save a little bit of it. Uh make sure we get through the project all the way. And all right, I'm going to pause there until [music] I can get a a piece of the leather. So, um, we've got the color I'm looking for. And the leather is actually will help get me a [music] little closer to make sure all this blends. I don't want it to be super super far off trying to find some leather. I'm sure that's the problem is we did the upholstery on it a few months ago. Now, they got to find a piece of leather. Did you find anything? Okay, that's it. >> All right. Yeah. So, I got to add a lot more red because we got >> it's a little It got a little green with Now, we're just getting a little closer. I want it to be darker than the leather. So, you kind of see this is kind of where we were, but now we're [clears throat] getting a little bit a little bit darker. Right in the same family, but I want it to I want it to be darker. So, I mostly know the color I want, but right now I'm wanting to I'm trying to thicken this up just a little bit. All right, let's go check it out. All right, so Louis is here sanding. You can see this like little chalkiness. And so that uh we'll get that sanded up. And like I said, we can blow it off. It's fine. Um >> blow it off. I can spray the >> We can wipe No, we can wipe it. Let's wipe that to start with because I want to I I don't know if I'm done tweaking the color. So, the glaze I like to kind of just have kind of like a smooth like pad. I'm going to go go a little darker. But you're going to have to edit this out cuz this is super boring. [music] Speed this up. What's cool about it is I can I can actually just go right over the stuff I put on. So, you can see how the glaze like it it's, you know, And then we'll just wipe that off. And just depending upon my pressure, I can see how that I really want to try to find you can cuz if you take a look, you can see like some golden color in here and I wanted to kind of bring that out to where they felt like it really just kind of ties in. How's that look on camera? Close. We don't want him to look too far removed, but I like the little darker of that. I think I might I think I might be good with that. Lou, >> hey. So, here's where we are. What do you think? Feels pretty close, huh? >> You want to keep it light? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I want to know like spray it all, then wipe it off here hard. And then let's we'll just lightly because I really want that darker edge cuz I want to pick up the golden tones in here that match the golden tones in here that then fade to the bed strips that'll be this this color. Does that make sense? So if you guys want to know why our wood beds uh are so good because we actually put a lot of time and effort into it to make sure it it is the look we're after. And so if you were to look at that, imagine a bed strip right next to it. We we really want the golden highlights which we we want to pick up from there to kind of blend in and then s slightly get darker and then kind of antiqu and then our bed strips will be closer to this color. Now that we've got this dialed in tomorrow when we get the cerak coat we'll dial in that color to be something that blends in really nice here. So it's not just a hey spray the wood bed and let's just get it done and stick it in and we're done. Right? It's not how it works around here. So guys, you know, paying for a quality job to get done and uh he's going to get it done. So we're going to make sure it's good for him. So all right, Louie, here's your piece. So I think we're good. So let's go ahead. Uh we're going to finish sanding and prepping all this stuff. So he's going to sand all the edges. He'll get in the cracks because we want whatever we put on to stick. And so if we were just to go over this, uh two things that uh happen, it wouldn't stick very well. And so it's a little bit kind of rough here. And then here it starts to get a lot smoother. Plus, it's starting to fill the grain in just a little bit. We could apply some more vinyl sealer. We could get some grain filler. There's a lot of things we could do to get a gloss, perfectly flat uh finish, but this is uh we're not looking for that. We're looking for like a high quality uh high-end furniture uh grade, but we also want real tight grain. Anytime you got real open grain, things will kind of bubble up and kind of look weird. So, this has had a minute to dry. We're going to go ahead and uh finish sanding all this stuff. And then, you know, you can kind of just see the difference here. You know, when you kind of look the difference on what the glazing is going to do. Uh we're toning down the gold a little bit. We still want it to see through, but also darken up the edges and kind of blend in into that. So, the back sides of it, we're not really concerned because it's the bottom. So, we'll just spray the glaze on and just kind of wipe it down and tone it so the tones are the same. But we'll spend most of our time, the final is is getting this top surface looking really good and having a real luxury feel. So, we'll get all sanded. We'll spray the glaze. And then when that's done, then we'll come back in with an automotive clear. Usually two coats. Uh we can top coat it. Two coats of clear and we're good to go. We'll use like a a satin finish on all this stuff. So stay tuned for that. Heat. Heat. Hey, uh we just finished up the clear coat. So, uh we put an automotive clear on it cuz it helps a little bit with the UV finish. a lot of these like interior uh you know cabinet finishing products and oil based products they don't love to be outside and so if we don't put an automotive clear on it might hurt it just a little bit if you just did like a regular clear it would definitely come fall apart sooner [music] but also when we're doing these really high-end wood beds they don't actually sit out in the sun right you go to a show you go back home and it's all [music] said and done but pretty easy at this point just wiping it down using little meuires wipe it down your little polish you know, just just kind of keep it uh dry, right? And don't don't let it bake out in the sun day in and day out and don't let it get wet. Like a lot of guys, I'm like, "Hey, you can go ahead and wash your vehicle. Just don't like hose down your bed." And if you do, just get a air nozzle and blow it all out. You know, get all the water out of it. It's the water sitting down in those little cracks that will start to break down the finish. Uh the good news is is if that does happen, you get four or five years down the road, you just take it out, you sand it, put a little light refinish, and for us, we'll we'll kind of sand it, prep it, sand the clear, prep [music] it, we'll reglaze just a little bit, kind of tidy that up, make it look fresh again, and then we'll reclear it, and you'll be good for another five, six years. So, um, pretty easy. So, again, we we've got this, you know, leather we've been kind of working from [music] as a not matching perfectly. I wanted to go slightly darker. The reason why is because inside the cab when the doors are shut, the leather's going to look darker. And then out in the sun, the bed's going to look a little bit brighter. And so I was trying to find something, you know, from a distance, they look very similar, but not exact. [music] I wasn't trying to be exact by any means, just close. So, we've sprayed it. Uh, this will dry overnight. I mean, essentially, [music] I could probably go touch it now. It's probably dry. And it's only been 20 minutes. And so, um, that matte finish on clear dries pretty quick. But we'll take all that um the screws out tomorrow. We'll be able to, you know, start putting that, laying it out in the bed tomorrow. We're going to start cerak coating the all the bed strips. So, we're going to get all that sprayed [music] tomorrow. So, that stuff's ready to go. And we'll uh go through the same process of getting the color just right. We'll do a color match cerak [music] coat to match the bed strips. And now, that we do actually weigh out. It's not as forgiving as what I'm doing with the with the glaze and stuff. So, we'll weigh that out. out. So if we ever have to make it again, we can, you know, make it precisely uh more cerakote with the wood finishing products. I can I can cheat it a little bit. So all right, let's go check it out, though. Let's go inside. So take a look at it. You got the little golden tones right through here. It fades out there and then that'll that'll help it, you know, tie in, you know, to this here. So, you know, it's it's going to have a nice it's going to flatten out quite a bit. This one's a little more wet than this one. This is starting to flatten out, but it definitely gives me the look that we're after. So, uh, pretty excited. Uh, the guys did a great job. Louis been finishing these wood beds for me for a lot of years. I used to have to do all this in the beginning, but I just knew I had to teach someone how to do it, and this was something that, uh, he's gotten really good at, and it and it looks really good. All right, just got the bed installed and we got to get out to Bear Jackson because it's going to be at a show and we're really kind of out of time. So, we're going to go ahead and send it and we're going to finish it. We got a couple things to finish a little bit later. We'll get it back and we want to trim a couple [music] boards and get it fitting better. But, essentially, the bed's installed. Uh you can see that this uh the bed strips right [music] here, we we worked really hard to get those to have a nice blended color with [music] the rest of the truck and and tie all that in. So, we're going to send this out to Bear Jackson. It's pretty [music] cool. The wood beds take a little bit of time, as you can see. Uh, not super easy. Um, but they look super good when they're done. We're super excited to have this done. And so, hopefully you learned a little bit about finishing wood beds, and that will help you when you get ready to finish your bed. And, >> [music] >> uh, with that, we'll see you next time. Take care.