Transporting Plywood

With the risk of damaging the tailgate, I’d rent a Home Depot truck for $19 to move something like this. That’s just me though.... Cost/benefit

 

I have one of the Harbor Freight bed extenders. Works great.

 

Actually, if you look closely at the pictures the rails are notched so that they do not touch the tailgate. All the weight of the load is supported by the notches in the side of the bed and the floor of the bed (which are both designed to be load bearing), no weight is applied to the tailgate.

Delivery costs for small loads like this would be close to the total price of the materials I'm picking up. Renting a HD truck would require twice the driving time. It took me about 2 hours to build the plywood rack and it has been extremely useful, especially for weekend projects where I just need to pick up a few sheets of plywood or drywall.

 

I don’t see where the rack is notched so that it puts zero weight on the tailgate. It looks like it lays right on it. Maybe a different picture?

I don’t like the bed racks because they decrease payload and now thats one more thing I don’t have space for in my garage. Plus 50% of the load is hanging out the truck and wrenching on the axle.

That’s why I always go with a 6ft+ bed.

 

Lotta work and expense for virtually no gain IMO. Just leave the tailgate up and slide the plywood in the truck. The bed is 5' and with the gate up you have less than 3' extending and only a fraction of the weight on the gate since the load is angled down toward the cab.

I also have a bed extender and with it folded down I can easily handle stuff up to 10' long.

 

Nice work OP but I do agree it seems like a lot of work to transport wood. I do see the notch cut out for the tailgate in the pre-assembled pics in the first post but a hitch bed extender and some scrap 2x4's would be much simpler.

 

I transport plywood by putting the 2x4 under the plywood sheet. I keep the tailgate up, and the weight falls on the 2x4s. I use straps around the plywood and the bed hooks. Never had an issue, but I do have a steel tailgate cap from voodoo.

 

Nice set up! Well put together as well.

I am a wood worker and move sheet goods around that can't get marked up- so this set up would work good for my needs- where having it leaning on the tail gate would mark it up too much for my uses.

I usually use a trailer for sheet goods so I can lay them flat- but this set up would be better than lugging the trailer all the time.

 

The notch can be seen in the 2nd picture. The rack does some take some garage space, but it comes apart and stores flat and pretty much disappears into a corner. Given that the Tacoma is rated for hundreds of pounds of tongue weight when towing I don't think having ~100lbs of lumber hanging out is a concern. The majority of the weight is carried by the pockets in the side of the bed, the remaining is carried by the rails which are cantilevered out over the tailgate.

Thanks, one main motivation for this setup was to be able to transfer sheet stock without chipping the edges or dinging the faces. I also wanted to have full length support for transporting drywall, if it's just leaning on the tail gate it can snap or the paper can get torn.

 

Wow, lots of work for an imaginary problem.
If there was a problem that needed to be fixed, I would have found it by now in one of my many loads of drywall, never fewer than 2 dozen.

 

The tailgates being weak POS on these trucks is not an imaginary problem. There's a lot of documented instances of them being weak. That being said, I just hang plywood over the top of mine too.

 

First of all, only when severely abused.
Second, you can bend the tailgate on ANY truck. They're ALL just made out of sheet metal.
And THIRD and probably most importantly, only when the tailgate is DOWN.

 

I disagree with all three of your points though only marginally with your last one since I do agree the tailgate being vertical makes it much less prone to damage. Still no denying their still shit tailgates, not that I expected much from them.

 

I plan on building this set up for my 6' bed. Some of the veneered sheet goods can be quite expensive (few hundred dollars a sheet) any damage done during transport to the edges or face can ruin an entire sheet.

I'd bet you can safely stack more weight on top of this set up than you can lean on the tail gate. When it's leaned on the tail gate it is the latches that are bearing the weight and lets not forget that the boxes are so weak on these trucks that 'bed stiffeners' have to be added to stop the bed sides from cracking the light sheet metal that supports the tail gate and leaning out to the sides- that means less of the tail gate latch is engaged- now you stack a bunch of weigh on there and then go over bumps that will increase the force... If you had enough weigh on the tail gate and had to do an emergency lane change you could end up with a flat bed!

Not saying that it will happen if you lean weight on your tail gate- just saying with these cheaply built Tacomas there will be less possibility for disaster by using something that transfers the weight to the bed floor over top of the frame mounting points- rather than assuming your tail gate latches will hold it. After all it is the people behind you that ultimately pay the price for your poorly secured load!

 

Yeah, this, and prob about the same cost. I have a lund version that supports 700 lbs, great for my kayaks as well

 

Great idea

 

And that is exactly what is wonderful about reality. Whether you agree or not has no absolutely no impact.

 

Thanks slomatt, for the awesome idea and picts. I’ll be building one soon!

I do agree that some of the plywood panels are freaking expensive and having a way to securely transport them is always a win!
Let’s not even mention the fragile drywall panels, lol!

- David

 

I am planning on building one of these for my long bed. I am wondering about hinging the two long pieces so that they fold and fit in the bed with the tailgate closed?