Surveyor's Crew Truck Equipment Box

[John Morris]

My day job as a Land Surveyor takes my crew and I to many interesting locations around our county. From hiking treks up mountains while laden down with survey gear to re-establish a lost section corner or township line, to building roads and bridges, we do it all. But, I get to do something that the other surveyors don't! I get to work the wood when called upon!

 

Every few years we get some new crew trucks in and I am the guy who gets the job of building the storage boxes that go into the trucks. The boxes house our gear, from leveling rods, to metal pipe locators, to tripods, to lath and hubs and various other ground implements such as shovels, impact bars, machete's and much more.

 

This past month our department became the proud owners of several very nice GMC 3500 crew cabs. These are the nicest trucks we have ever had, this is the first time we have power mirrors, power windows, power door locks, and cruise control, and there is a view panel in the middle of the dash console that displays backup camera, and we can even link up our smart phones to receive hands-free calls, and if you really wanted to you could activate your music playlist on your smartphone, but we'll stay away from that as music is a personal thing and not every crew member likes the musical taste of the other guy. But as crew chief I do choose the radio station, and typically I'll listen to talk radio. It is what it is, perhaps the younger guys will learn something.

 

So this time, being no different than the next, the powers that be sent me home with a crew truck and supplies to build the first box. I have two more trucks to do. Each box takes a day, from 6am to 4:30pm. Our standard work day, and it just so happens that is how long it takes to fabricate one of these boxes.

 

One of three new GMC 3500 4 x 4

 

Next few images are just some quick shots I took of the box in build state and finish.

 

 

Every piece of the box is interlocked with 3/4" dado's using a PC 690 with a 3/4" straight bit. For all the boxes I have built in the past, I always used my PC 7518 for this process, but for some reason I just grabbed the smaller guy, I guess I didn't feel like moving around the 7518 all day, although the 7518 goes through this like butter, the 690 does strain and holler a tad.

 

 

The box is set in place. I know I skipped a few process's before I got to this, but time being an issue, I had to work fast, and I could not really get as many images as I wanted too.

The edge facing is 3/4" oak to protect the ply edges from bangs and bumps.

The top section has some 4" PVC tubes, the right tube along with the wood half circle cutouts will hold our various leveling and transit rods. The two PVC tubes on the left house our diamond shaped "Survey Crew Ahead" traffic signs when rolled up, and the space in between those tubes house the standards the signs set on. The lower wide cubbie houses a drawer that holds our 2' lath, 4' lath, and various sized wooden hubs for construction staking, and also our monument pipes for setting legal corners and "Right of Way" and road "Centerline" positions.

The metal shop at our yard fabricated those traffic cone racks you see mounted on the outside rear, the black spindles, we stack 10ea. 24" tall cones on each side for traffic control situations.

 

Now you can see the drawer that I built as well, you'll see the right front side is shorter, for the 2' lathe, and the front left, is longer, for the 4' lath. And behind those compartments will house the hubs and pipe.

The drawer is on wheels, it slides wonderfully in and out. What you don't see in this picture is the gate latch I installed as the last thing I did. The gate latch is mounted to the outside left of the drawer face, and it latches to the left into the truck box body, this prevents the box from sliding forward and back during travel.

The truck bed is a standard 8' long by 4' wide, the box is 6.5' long, we need space to the rear to set a jack hammer into that we use on occasion to dig up monuments in asphalt.

 

We get new trucks rarely, the last time we got a new truck was in 2010. We really use our trucks, I believe the formula used is replacement after 150,000 miles, after that they become more expensive to maintain then to just purchase a new one. And believe me after 150,000 miles, they are beat. We use them in 4x4 very frequently and they get bounced, whacked, and marred up pretty good, as we travel down tight areas and even between tree lined streams, they get beat up pretty good. This beautiful truck will look old in two years.

 

My Crew Truck is a 2010 Ford outfitted the same as this one, my truck still has some miles to go before it's replaced, but it sure is good to see some new trucks for our crew chiefs, there is nothing like a brand new crew truck to lift the spirits of the men.

 

Thanks for looking!

[Stick486]

thanks for showing...

nice job...

 

[John Morris]

1 minute ago, Stick486 said:

thanks for showing...

nice job...

 

I'll tell ya what Stick, I am beat today. I did that box yesterday, and all the lifting of sheets, and jostling, and such, my back is tore up, my arm hurts, I aint cut out for this anymore. Last time I built boxes was in 2010, I was much stronger then I think! I am not a flat work large case type of woodworker anymore. I'll stick with my light weight rockers!

I got two more trucks to do next week, if I survive!

[Fred W. Hargis Jr]

Nice, but hasn't a lot of that stuff been replaced with GPS type devices?

[John Morris]

1 hour ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

Nice, but hasn't a lot of that stuff been replaced with GPS type devices?

Boy Fred, you just asked a highly charged question in the survey industry that evokes lengthy discussion at seminars and conferences the world over.

But I won't bore anyone here with the details but I can break it down.

 

First of all, we carry both GPS and conventional equipment. Each having their own advantages and disadvantages. Mainly GPS is excellent at determining horizontal locations, our survey quality GPS today, depending how we set up our initial control network, is as accurate as 0.02', two hundredth's of a foot horizontally. Those are excellent values for determining boundaries and re-establishing or setting Public Lands corners such as in a Section, Township scenario where high accuracy is desired.

GPS stinks at vertical values, again for many reasons I won't bore you with. But you would not want to stake anything that demands a high accuracy tolerance vertically with GPS, your just not going to get it. Generally you can expect vertical accuracy with GPS no better than 0.10' or a tenth of a foot. That is fine for rough grading construction projects and where high accuracy vertical values are not necessary.

Again, for establishing high accuracy horizontal control networks and establishing positions where vertical accuracy is not needed on a high level, GPS is great.

 

Our conventional instruments such as our "Total Stations" provide us with both excellent horizontal and vertical tolerances to the hundredth's of a foot. We use our conventional total stations also known as transits, for high quality horizontal and vertical work. If we need to stake the location of a new bridge abutment, and typically vertical precision is necessary during the construction of hard concrete features such as bridges, we would break out our Total Station/transit. And when even higher quality elevations are needed such as monitoring the vertical movement of a bridge, we would then use the traditional precise leveling rod and traditional level.

 

We can't use one or the other anymore, we need a combination of tools for any specific survey job. Where GPS fails, we can pick up with the transit, when surveying large areas miles long, the GPS excels and a transit becomes cumbersome.

 

And, when we need to do a quick down and dirty measuring survey of a very small local project, we'll even go waay back to our roots and break out the measuring chain and plumb bobs and figure angles on the fly.

 

Our GPS equipment and our total stations/transits are kept in the side boxes with padded cushions. One GPS unit with software runs around $60,000 and our "Total Stations/Transits" run around $36,000. We are driving around with a small mortgage in equipment. The rear boxes just hold the accessories for those units, the real stuff is kept in the side compartments.

 

[Chips N Dust]

Great Job! It is always nice to build something like that for a change. At my previous company, we had a little utility trailer for one crew to keep their tools in. I built a fold up plan table to go in there - they guys really liked that.

 

It is hard getting old John, maybe the bosses would see fit to give you a day and a half to build a box instead of 1 day - I do not think they would want a workers comp claim -

[John Morris]

6 minutes ago, Chips N Dust said:

It is hard getting old John, maybe the bosses would see fit to give you a day and a half to build a box instead of 1 day - I do not think they would want a workers comp claim -

Kelly, you are completely correct on that, embarrassingly I am the one that imposed the one box per day project deadline! That was based on my younger capacity and strength to get them done. I keep forgetting I am not that guy anymore! I will inform them next time though of the revised extended schedule.

I'd love to see that plan table if you managed to get some pics of it.

[Grandpadave52]

Most excellent John. Great storage and organization system to ensure a place for everything & everything in it's place.

 

Do you paint or seal the ply in any fashion? You probably don't deal with the sweltering heat and humidity during the summer like here in the Midwest but I would think exposure to heat under the bed cover and periodic rain (when you do get some) would cause the ply to deteriorate over time.  

[Gerald]

Great job on the box. I remember you posting about making these on what I thought was the first for your truck. Thanks for the explanation.

[John Morris]

34 minutes ago, Gerald said:

Great job on the box. I remember you posting about making these on what I thought was the first for your truck. Thanks for the explanation.

I can't remember Gerald if I built the first box for my own personal Ford F150 when I was hanging doors, or if the first set I built for my job. I think I first started building these boxes for my day job trucks around 2005, and thinking back I think I built one for my own truck as well. I used to hang doors on the side and on weekends, and I built a box for personal truck around the same time. I'll see if I can dig up that old post.

[John Morris]

6 hours ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Most excellent John. Great storage and organization system to ensure a place for everything & everything in it's place.

 

Do you paint or seal the ply in any fashion? You probably don't deal with the sweltering heat and humidity during the summer like here in the Midwest but I would think exposure to heat under the bed cover and periodic rain (when you do get some) would cause the ply to deteriorate over time.  

Dave, I haven't put any coating on in the past, and so far they hung in there pretty good. The interior of that steel box is water resistant, meaning it's impossible for rain or a truck wash to force water inside, but if you sunk the truck, it would fill up with water.

We work in heat up to 120 degrees and more, in the desert in the summer, and we get come pretty good monsoons that come through here too. So ya we get humidity. I think the main reason why they hold up so well is they are hardly ever in direct sunlight or open air, the box is typically always closed up. The boxes that I have built about 12 years ago in the older trucks are holding strong, they look beat cosmetically, but the integrity is still solid.

[Cal]

Great job John, and thanks for the quick lesson on GPS vs transit.  

Also, I agree with Kelly that 1 1/2 day may be a bit more realistic.  Having just wrestled around a few sheets of 3/4" OSB underlayment by myself - it's tough!

Great work,

Cal

[John Moody]

Nice job on those John. 

[John Morris]

On 4/29/2017 at 4:53 AM, clhyer said:

Also, I agree with Kelly that 1 1/2 day may be a bit more realistic.

I will, based on you and Kelly's prodding, I am going to walk right into that office and lay down the law. Thanks guys

[John Morris]

5 hours ago, John Moody said:

Nice job on those John. 

Thanks sir!

[John Morris]

Started Truck Box number 2 today. I wish our company would get another lumber supplier account, we only have Home Depot, and the ply there, sucks. First box in OP I tried this crud called Sanded Ply from China. Upon close observation the stuff looked pretty tight, thin ply's, no voids, but when trying to screw into the end of the ply like a simple butt joint, you could hear the ply's separating just ripping apart, so I had to pre-drill every thing and take it really slow.

 

The second box, I tried a different ply, 10 bucks more per sheet, appears ok at first, I don't like the few thick ply's it has, but hey, it looked pretty decent, until I started peeling the sheets off from the stack I have in my shop, then the voids and cracks became apparent, crap!

 

This stuff is sold at Home Depot, and imported from Ecuador, it's crap, stay away from it for any type of finish work, and the stuff costs 40 bucks a sheet.

 

Big thick ply's, I don't like this. You can just see the crappy veneer peeling away by just looking at it. Look at the porous ply's.

 

Starting going through the stack, and some were like this, cracks and putty fills for voids. Just absolute crap.

 

But, the stuff screwed together really well, surprisingly, no cracks upon screw entry, no pre-drilling needed, thank goodness. The stuff actually felt kind of rubbery, but held the screws really well. For this truck box I put my PC 690 away and brought out my big gun, my 7518 with my straight edge, went through it like butter, nice clean dado's. I have straightedges for my routers and my worm drive saw, zero clearance to the cut line, just set the edge on the line, and cut, no brainer.

 

I had 12 sheets of ply in the back, I unloaded half and left the rest in and pulled them out as needed, each sheet was cut to 6' as that is the length of the box, I just cross cut in place and slid it to the bench for the dado's or the table saw. The straight edge, again is a zero set to line, I used this one for my doors when I was installing a ton of doors on the side, I had a 36" straight edge for cutting the door bottoms off, and a 48" for wider doors, I don't know where my 36" went, been awhile since I installed doors, but I still have my 48" handy, good thing.

 

I started this box today around 12 noon, should finish it tomorrow by lunch, and I'll deliver to the job.

[Grandpadave52]

16 minutes ago, John Morris said:

then the voids and cracks became apparent, crap!

Snork!

17 minutes ago, John Morris said:

stuff is sold at Home Depot, and imported from Ecuador, it's crap, stay away from it

Snork, Snork!

17 minutes ago, John Morris said:

You can just see the crappy veneer peeling away

Snork, snork, snork!

17 minutes ago, John Morris said:

Just absolute crap

Quit it...my nose hurts!!

Just curious John, overall how did you really feel about this plywood versus the previous stuff?Maybe should have been ground up and made into toilet paper?

 

[Stick486]

6 minutes ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Maybe should have been ground up and made into toilet paper?

 

use a corn cob...not as dangerous...

[Chips N Dust]

Good ply is hard to find. Luckily, the locam lowes sell plywood from Roseburg Forest Products. A Douglas county Oregon company. Fond memories of that company

[Gene Howe]

I'm baffled as to the market for the crappy plywood sold by the big box stores. Who buys the stuff?