Hey guys.
I'm going to build a tailgate bench.
I'm not sure if you've seen them before but you can google it and see lots of pictures
of tailgate benches.
I found this tailgate and tailgate band on craigslist for thirty dollars.
The guy also threw in a chevy grill that I don't need but I like the kind of vintage
look of this one.
The steel that I'm going to use is this 2"x2" tubing and I think that's 14 gauge.
The angle is 1"x1"x1/8" I believe.
And then I've got some 1"x6" pine.
Just regular pine that you find at Lowes or Home Depot.
Anyway, we'll see how this goes together.
Here you can see that I've got the start of one side, one arm rest started.
This is the first one that I've ever built so I'm kind of just flying by the seat of
my pants here.
Again this is 2"x2" tubing, 14 gauge.
These brackets here are brackets that I've started that will go into the sides of the
tailgate.
I don't really want to drill or permanently modify the tailgate just in case I ever want
to use it for something so it will be hinged kind of like it would be on a truck.
I'm just doing this with a MIG.
And this is my Miller Challenger 172.
I've had it for 15 years or something.
Nothing real special.
Here's the bench at another stage.
It's laying on it's back here but you can see that I've got both side pieces tacked
up and the cross bars are welded there.
The back will lay back at a steeper angle so it should be more comfortable and I'll
have wood going across for the seating surface.
I haven't welded the arm rests on yet.
I'm kind of just waiting to see how it turns out.
Here's the bench upright.
This tray right here is the start of like a tray where the boards will mount on there
so..
It's coming along a little bit farther.
I'm thinking about making this hinged so it will open and you can put stuff in bins maybe
down there or just access underneath the bench.
I'm not real sure yet but that's kind of the way it's progressing.
Here I've got the boards in the frame for the seat.
I did have to rip one of them a little bit thinner to make it fit.
If you pay attention to the width of your boards you probably wouldn't have to do that
like me but anyway...
It's looking pretty good.
I've got the tailgate mounted and it's fairly comfortable.
Right now the back is just held up by a strap.
I'll show you the strap back here.
I've got to make some brackets to hold it at this angle.
It is attached with those pivot brackets right down here so that you don't have to weld onto
the tailgate or anything.
And it also allows the tailgate to fold down so you can sit on it with it down also.
Here's another stage of the tailgate bench.
I mounted this tailgate band down underneath the seat just as a trim piece.
It looks kind of cool.
Where the tailgate handle cut out is, is a good lifting point for the seat.
It works pretty well.
And I added these strengthening ribs underneath the wood to keep it from bowing.
And it looks kind of cool with the tailgate folded down.
Just looks kind of neat.
Still gotta work on the angles to keep the tailgate up in the back and the arm rests
but it's coming along.So I worked another few hours on the tailgate bench.
It doesn't look that different but I welded on the arm rests here, tacked them on and
I got the tailgate itself so that it's supported by the bench.
There's no more temporary strap back there.
It worked out kind of cool.
You have to pull the tailgate handle in order to get it to fold down.
So it's just like it's on the truck.
It won't fold down until you release the handle and then it will fold down.
It worked out pretty well.
I still need to finish fully welding all the joints.
Everything is pretty much just tacked together.
The latch ended up being pretty simple.
It's just a square, piece of square 1.5" tubing and whenever you pull the handle, it pulls
the latch in exactly like it's on the truck and lets it pass by.
Anyway, I need to paint it and finish capping off some of these tubes but it's getting closer.
Ok, got a little bit more work done.
Underneath the seat I've got bins in here now.
It's a place to store shoes or gloves, hats, you know, just whatever.
But uh, I figured I didn't want to waste that space under there.
I thought about welding together some sort of mesh basket but I decided to go with the
plastic bins.
It was a little bit faster.
But anyway, it's getting real close to being finished.
All I did to hold these bins in is just weld little tabs on each side that catch the lip.
These happen to fit in here very tightly so I just needed one tab on the front and one
on the back.
It holds it in there real securely.
Pretty simple.
And here's the finished product.
I've the joints welded and the ends of the tubes capped and the whole thing painted.
It needs to dry a little bit more but I wanted to get it together.
On the floor here you can see I'm testing some stains and the very right there is actually
burned with a propane torch which I might do if I can figure out how to get it uniform
looking.
But anyway, the project turned out pretty well.
I had a good time doing it.
It took longer than I expected but you could probably cut the build time by making it a
little simpler.
I was just thinking while I was putting it together, it would be cool to have some bed
strips in here on the seat just like the back of an older Chevy pickup truck.
They have chrome strips that separate the boards.
Might be kind of cool but anyway...
That's the finished product.
I'm looking forward to using it.
I appreciate you guys watching.
Let me know if you have any questions.
I'll be happy to answer them!