Making it through another year, '23-'24

[Old Greenhorn]

Austin, I have had some serious back issues that really sidelined me bad in the last 40 years. But I have a full time Chiro man now that keeps me in the game. Not as cheap as a back roller, but he is spot on with his body work. I have my monthly with him in about a week or so and in the meantime he has done enough good work on me that I heal up pretty well by myself  most times with a few days light work. If I ever REALLY hurt myself I can call him and he will stay late to get me started healing up. I always give it 1 day and if there is no improvement I think about calling, by the second day, I usually don't have to make the call. The key is ongoing maintenance to keeps things pretty much in alignment.
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Doc, it's been a very long time since I had a CB. But I just realized this is the first truck I have had since 1982 or so that I did not hook up some Ham radios in (from 1973 to 1982 they were CB's). I have no 2 way radios in this truck at all. Back in the mid 80's I had 2 meter VHF, 440 UHF, and 10, 12, 15, 20, 40, and 80 meters on HF (and antennas for each of those bands). I had a second battery on that truck to handle the draw on a 100 watt radio. Some of my trucks looked like an antenna farm. I am just not into the hobby as much as I used to be. My previous truck had just VHF, I had marine, ham, and fire capabilities as well as the town highway channels in case we needed them on a fire call. No, on this truck I just didn't feel like doing all the wiring, fusing, switching systems, and power buss, let alone the antennas. Maybe I should think about it? ;D
On The Other Hand... I could just put one little UHF antenna on one side and a VHF antenna on the other side. :D But I had also considered a 48" LED off road light bar I have had hanging in the shop for a few years. It will light up the world in front of you, that's for sure. ;D I have yet to test that fairing out at speed, so we will see. The light bar will likely change the fluid dynamics.
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Today I got to the mill and had to spend some time bucking logs for the next order before I could reach the logs for the current order. SO I spent an hour and a half doing that and then getting two bigger logs up to the mill. I milled up one, got the next log up on the bed, and then it got hot and humid, so I headed home. I didn't have breakfast and it was 1:30, so I had lunch and then my new truck toolbox arrived just as I was setting up to plane out some wood for the bench rack I'm making for the truck. I put the box on the side, planed up what I had, cleaned out the chip collector and stowed all that stuff. then got the box mounted.



 

It may not be pretty, but it is functional.


 

It's a 49" long box, 15x15 on the end. It will hold 2 saws, gas and oil, straps and a few other things, which was the goal. Looks pretty tall doesn't it? The top of the box is under 8.5' off the ground, so I am good on that score but have to be careful in the woods. ;D I had some restrictions based on the shape and fittings on the ladder rack, but this will get the job done. I am already working on a modified design that will lower the top of the box about even or a little below the top of the ladder rack deck. But that one I can take my time working on. Right now it is a pretty tall reach to get the saws in and out. This is functional and does what I need, which is having my saws and basic tools on the truck all the time in a dry condition. Only concern remaining is how this all behaves at 70 mph. :D
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Tomorrow is looking to be a rainout, so I will get into making the bench hangers for the rack and we'll see how that goes. It's just one step at a time and the hope is to make some progress on each step. The one big thing I learned from that little show I did was packing the truck (and fitting everything in) is something I need to work on. Packing in a  way that I cause no damage to the finishes and can fit as much stuff in as possible. I realize now I don't need a trailer if I just make more use of what I have available. So if I hang benches from the ladder rack, it gives me more room in the bed, and packing becomes easier and more secure. Really curious how this bench hanger idea is gonna work out. Tomorrow should give me a clue. I'd like to get 5 benches up in the air and out of the bed. That may be a stretch.
Tomorrow is another day.

[thecfarm]

I've had my truck at 55 a few times. but no noise from my rack.
I wonder if some rubber under each support would help??

[Old Greenhorn]

Ray, the vibration I am getting is in the front section that hangs over the cab and is unsupported. No place to put in any dampers. If I did they would just rub the paint off the top of the cab. Doing computational fluid dynamics modeling is way in rearview mirror these days ;D, so I am just doing the farm mechanic version of playing with the problem until I find a solution I can make with available material and maybe some baling wire. :D

[chep]

Mind the low branches with your toolbox!! I run orchard ladders on my tacoma sometimes and have had some pretty silly run ins forgetting my height.. 

[chep]

Maybe get an antenna extender of some sort to help gage height...

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, I am under 9' so I'm not worried. ;DBut there are those odd branches all over on the woods roads I have to be mindful of. ;D I know it looks tall, but it really isn't and I am already thinking on an idea to lower it considerably. We'll just see how it goes. My Dad always said I had to learn things the hard way, and this may (or may not) be another example of his wisdom.

[Resonator]

Good experience (knowledge) comes from bad mistakes. (Old saying, best I can remember it). ;D

The contractors years ago would spray expanding foam inside the metal rungs on ladders on the ladder racks to keep the sound down, might help on the rack itself if it has any openings.

If you do get a CB let me know. I'll teach you the dying language dialect of big rig CB trucker talk. "Breaker one nine, you got your ears on driver... c'mon?!" ;D

[Ljohnsaw]

I picked up a rack for my Tundra. My Tundra is the full 4 door model and the rack was made for a 2 door. It has a welded on air deflector but it sits above the middle of the roof. It's a flat plate at 45° attached at the top edge to the round bar. When I hit 70, the air flow makes my roof vibrate. One of these days I'm going to put a bottom section on it to see if that helps.

[thecfarm]

What I meant was putting rubber under the 4 supports that connect to the back body.
Yours is a little different on how it hooks on to your body. Mine just has J hooks that go under the lip of the top rail.

[Old Greenhorn]

Ray, the rack is rock solid with no vibrations at all. Each corner is bolted to the bed with (2) 1/2-13 hex bolts. The issue is with that 4.5' of rack that sticks out over the roof. It only relies on the rigidity of the tubing and the rest of the rack so when that air flows around the top it sets up some interesting forces. I am hoping the deflector puts all the force downward.
 The thing with fluid dynamics is that it's a balance of the inputs, so when one thing changes something else can happen in a different format, such as what John just mentioned. Rack is fine, but his roof now is getting sucked up and down.
 If you remember the vehicles that have a simple FM radio antenna on the fender, when you would get the vehicle up to a certain speed, that antenna would vibrate like mad in a standing wave pattern? So thinking about that I have another possible solution in mind I will try if this one doesn't work. I should have tried it first, but given all the variables, I don't know if it will work.

[thecfarm]

Good luck with the noise.
Maybe that's why the guy sold the truck I just bought, it makes a noise at a certain speed. 
I only go to work with it, might do 50mph with it. 
I did take it to home depot once. 
Might have been up to 60 with no noise for a short distance.

[aigheadish]

Semi-related...

I'm amazed at the buffeting of wind on some cars in the days of wind tunnels. My wife seems to have a penchant for buying anything that buffets like crazy. I know car makers can't test for everything and every circumstance but it seems like another edge here or there would stop some of this. First, she had a Rav4 that if the back windows were opened almost any amount the buffeting would assault your eardrums, then she had a Honda Passport that was a little better but still not great, now it's a tiny Corolla hatchback that has similar issues. My son has a Camry that does it too, seems to be more prevalent in Toyotas for some reason, or at least that's where I've noticed it. I don't know anything of the physics of such things but seems like something that would be noticed.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well yesterday was supposed to be a rainout, but we only got 3/8" spread through the day and into the evening. In the morning I started working in earnest on the bench rack for the truck and I got my first one mocked up and test fitted, then took it down and the rain started just as I was picking up tools. So back into the shop and made the second rail, but I only had 3" carriage bolts and needed 6" so the wife and I took a run to HD and she did some window shopping while I hunted up the bolts and got some more poly. During the trip I got the truck up to 65 and the noise is GONE!  I love it when  plan comes together. ;D
 SO when we got home I removed the spoiler before it got too wet (just 4/4 EWP, saw finish) and brought that in the shop. I finished up the rack rails now that I had the right screws and test fitted, then took them apart and started applying poly I don't want the to soak up water if they get wet. I don't plan of leaving them on the truck for extended periods but I want them sealed so they last and tree sap can be washed off. So I did a coat all over on both sides plus the 'clamp blocks', then I took the spoiler and planed it off, sanded it and painted it black to sort of match the truck a bit better. Today I have an 'adornment' to add, then I will polyurethane it and see how that looks.
 After that I made a fitted crate to go inside the box on top to hold jumper cables, ratchet straps, etc. and didn't bother with a finish. I have ben bringing home those 'leveling cuts I get once in a while off the mill, where I have to take 1/2" or less off a cant to bring it to size or fix a squaring issue. It's not often, but I bring these home, run them through the planer and get them to about 1/4-5/16 or so thick, then set them aside until I need a crate. I cut off a few pieces at crate length and rip them into 2" strips. Easy-peasey. Good use for more scrap and they don't make many btu's anyway. Also, at that thickness, they air dry pretty quick in the shop. Box ends are usually the drops off of 1x12's or something. I am finding crates are much better than cardboard boxes.
 I'll try to get all this stuff pretty much finished up today if I can. It's damp and cool might start a one shot fire in the shop to dry the air a bit.

[Old Greenhorn]

Not enough today to make a post worthwhile, but two things of interest popped into the day. I started out as planned and put another coat of urethane on the bench racks, just gotta wait for drying time. Maybe tomorrow I can do a test load. Maybe. I also put poly on the spoiler/fairing thingy after I put a slight adornment on it.


 

 I always like it when I am driving and I can identify somebody else coming my way so I can wave before it's too late. So many trucks look the same these days. So I like to make it so folks can 'see me' coming. ;D for better or worse.
 In the meantime. I mentioned the other day that I had another idea, based on my limited CFD experience. Since I had the spoiler off for finishing, I thought I would try it as an academic exercise. Now don't laugh, but understanding how air flows over a round tube I thought that all i needed to do was change the dynamics of the air flow. I figured this had a good chance of working:


 

 It's just a rope wrapped around the bar. If you look at most of the antennas on vheicles (that still have them) you will note a spiral wrap around the antenna. This is done to break up the air flow so that at high speed the antenna doesn't vibrate like mad. This here is the same concept. I had to run to town for fuel for the splitter, truck, and beer, so I gave it a test. At 50 MPH it just begins to vibrate lightly and as the speed goes up, the vibrations go away. It works! So for guys like Ray, this might be an easy solution if you are going out on the interstate at speed. It was a fun little experiment and I'll leave the rope on until I put the spoiler back up.
 Between all this stuff I had gone out to the shop this morning without my phone and when I finally got it from my desk I saw that I had missed a call from 'custom sawmilling'. Well that was out of the blue and I wondered if I was in trouble or something. ;D SO I returned the call and left a message. Less than an hour later we finally hooked up and had a lovely conversation catching up and swapping notes on growing a business, lessons learned, marketing, etc. At any rate I think that call was the highlight of my week. It was a good lesson to me that a call from a friend for no particular reason can be a real shot in the arm for one's morale. I'll have to start doing that myself more often.
 Ah well, tomorrow is a another day.

[thecfarm]

I will remember the rope trick.
I've seen that on antennas, but never would have thought to do.
I did get the truck up to 70 when I was trying it out. Did not hear anything odd.
aigheadish,I know what you mean about the noise. Need those side vents in the front windows.

[doc henderson]

Tom, maybe you can wrap it in vacuum.. I mean discharge hose!

[Old Greenhorn]

As long as I seal the ends of the hose. Think of the sound from that at 75 MPH.

[aigheadish]

That rope trick is cool! Good thinking! When I was a teenager they made a corrugated (ribbed maybe?) tube that you could swing around really fast and it would make a crazy whirring noise. I wonder if the same could be accomplished here. May get some attention from the boys in blue, as I could see it sounding like a siren.

cfarm, I would love, love to see those little corner vents come back into vogue. They were one of my favorite things on cars/trucks of that era. Who needs a/c when you can point one of those toward your face.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, I miss those vent windows also, too bad they had to 'improve' on them. >:(
 Well it was supposed to rain most of the day today, but it was kind of whimpy rain, we haven't even gotten a tenth of an inch yet. But it was cool and very damp, so I did another junk fire in the shop.
 I put the finished rack boards up on the ladder rack and before it started raining I put a few benches up there as a test fit.


 

 I only put 3 up. That was enough to see that it wasn't working out very well. The box on the left side of the truck is cutting down the available space for benches.



 

 I could have put another smaller one up, but I had seen enough. So I took them down and knew what I had to do. I marked the planks to cut them shorter and brought them back in the shop just as it started sprinkling. I cut them off and refinished the ends. Then while that was drying, I took the box off it mounts and swung it 90° across the rails and over the cab. I had planned for this possibility and hade made the hole pattern to work in either direction, just in case I changed my mind.



 

 So now I can run the rails more in the center of the rack and should be able to get 5 of the bigger pieces up there or so and I can put small stools and such in the box. I'll wait for a better weather day to do another test fit and come up with a way to fasten things down. The downside to this setup is that I can't put any long lumber up on top of the rack with that box in the way.
 Tomorrow is another day, they say more rain. We'll see.

[Ljohnsaw]

Time for some design committee input. ;)

What about mounting the truck box cross ways right behind the cab?  Make your mount board hang from below the rack so the box only protrudes a little less above the cab?

I realize this will kill any chance of hauling long stuff.  Then you can have your bench racks running from the box all the way to the rear to give you more hanging space and full width.  Maybe even have the bench rack hang off the back for an additional bench?  As far as loading the benches, are you planning on a layer with the legs down, a moving blanket and then a layer with the legs up?

Another option would be to make the bench rack go side to side and the benches going in line with the bed.  Placing two layers like I mention above would give you room for 6 pretty easily (3 across).

EDIT: you were modifying your post while I was typing.  I guess great minds think alike! ;)

[gspren]

I obviously don't know what all you plan to haul in the truck and maybe you don't either but I would want the tool box mounted on the bed rail, drivers side toward the front so accessible from the ground, maybe need a short stool. You could commission someone to design the stool. :D

[Old Greenhorn]

No, not modifying the post.
First, if I hang the box below the rails, it still prevents me from putting a bench above it unless I put it upside down, plus, I can't use the box because I can't open it with the bench rails over it. It would also cover the back window completely. Right now with the box over the cab area, it gives me the maximum available open hanging space. It's entirely possible I have misunderstood your suggestion on this point. I did read it twice though. If that box is inside the perimeter of the bed it consumes the space where legs would hang is what it comes down to so I got it over the cab and out of the way.

My cherry benches have pretty fine finishes on them and I'd rather not stack them, but I have a couple of oak benches I might try it on. I am worried about catching a branch on the legs in some of the more wooded market areas.

The idea of going crosswise with possibly two sets of rails did occur to me. It might, or might not give me more room up there. I don't know. In addition, getting the benches (which are not lightweight) up on the crossway rails would be a bit more difficult. I need room to stand up straight to make the lift. My stuff is all different sizes and shapes, so it would be like a puzzle fitting it in and the main concern is that nothing bangs or rubs up against anything else. I don't want to beat up my stuff going to and from. So I may try crosswise setup as a mockup sometime.
I probably should have explained up front that I found at the last show that it was just too tight and would only fit in the truck if everything was packed perfectly. Loading for the show was fine, I had all the time in the world to keep moving stuff around until it fit well. Packing up at the show, not so much. ;D So the rack is a way to 'take the pressure off' the packing issues. If I get 5 or 6 pieces up in the air, it's puts me in pretty good shape. I had one finished product that I did not take to the show because I couldn't fit it safely. I should now be able to take that, plus a few more I have yet to make. But as it was, I had enough stuff that I could not stuff it in a 10x15 booth area.

But you're right John. I don't think this is done yet and I have other stuff I can try, but this is a good first step and I want to try it out before I start making changes. For instance, if you look at my prior post photos, you will see there is a crossbar on the rack, that was supporting the back end of the tool box. I can move that around now, or remove it completely. So I will mess with that also, because the bar is just a head banger I may not even need.

Gspren, yeah, that's where it should be, for sure and ideally the best spot. But it's a deep box and I would need some good brackets to support the back end. The box is a cheap one made with thin material, so it requires some 'bolstering up'. I'd have to make that a project and find some steel for brackets, etc.. Doing that mount style would be a separate project that I don't have the time for now. But it's a goal to work towards.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   My thoughts were on stacking but you pretty well covered that. With the time spent and quality of your finishes you cannot risk it. I often have some unfinished benches and can lay them on moving blankets and put blankets between benches facing each other and strap them in good and take a bunch. Good luck and remember the design committee is standing by to help. ;)

[Ljohnsaw]

First, if I hang the box below the rails, it still prevents me from putting a bench about it unless I put it upside down, plus, I can use the box because I can't open it with the rack over it. It would also cover the back window completely.

No, not what I meant.  Hang the 2x6 below the side rails and that will lower the box maybe 5" (the thickness of the 2x6 + the thickness of the rack side rails).

Depending on the length of your benches, maybe have three running one direction, a blanket and then some running the other direction so the legs hang along the sides of the lower benches - eliminate the legs sticking up into the trees!  All about the rack spacing and the bench lengths.

[Old Greenhorn]

John, I like that stacking idea. I had not thought of that and will try it when I do a test when the rain stops. Probably Sunday.
 As far as the box suggestion, I am completely lost. Are you speaking about hanging the box the way it was in the first two photos, just 5" lower? or are you saying I should have it behind the cab and parallel to the back window? In any event, I don't see how this helps me at all. So I think I am still not following you.