3 step bed painting Part Deux

[mrein3]

This is a follow on to 72 tigger's 3 step bed painting post from the first of the year. I didn't want to stomp on his post so I thought I'd start another.

3 steps? THREE STEPS?!?
How about more like 30 steps.

First let me say I hate rust. Here in Minnesota if it doesn't have paint on it there will be rust. You desert guys have no idea how easy you have it.
I found a reasonably priced long wheel base (LWB) bed with a metal floor on craigslist over in Wisconsin. Already disassembled. I like my LWB truck. I use it like a truck and haven't yet figured out why a guy would want to have a pickup without an eight foot bed. There really is no accounting for taste.

I bought the bed, hauled it across state lines, then started planning.
When these things were made by the general in the late 60s and early 70s, stuff was made way different than today. Where today's vehicle is assembled with galvanized steel, is dipped in epoxy primer, then painted, our stuff was assembled bare and what wasn't in view of the paint gun was left uncovered. Any non-galvanized metal in this state rusts. Period. You don't need to drive on a salty road to get rust on unprotected metal. Just the moisture in the air will do it.

Yes I filleted a bedside. I cut/drilled out all the spot welds, brushed off all the rust, patched a bedside hole, acid etched the metal, masked over what needed to be re-welded, then epoxied the inside. I know you guys that are more anal than me would have put color on top of that but I figured that was good enough.

I removed the masking tape, spray bombed the to be welded surfaces with weld through primer, then put the bed back together.
I know you're thinking crazy waste of time but I usually have more time than money and they hadn't yet started re-popping LWB bedsides when I did the first side. They were re-popping them when I got done with side one. Side two is a re-pop.