Floorboards from crates...myth, right?

[Jem]

The September Automobile magazine has a Model T article. One owner repeats the old 'Henry made suppliers size their crates to reuse as floorboards' story and says it's true 'cos his floorboards have company names stamped on them.

He also claims his 22 touring is a Texas fire chief's car with original factory red paint 'cos there is no black to be found on the car.

Please tell me he's wrong on both counts.

[Kerry]

Well some crate stories are fact, published in 1916 that some T's sent to France, used the crates they arrived in to build ambulance bodies.

[Jem]

Yes I can see that as wartime expedience, there was probably a shortage of timber in the war zone.

[big2bird]

Years ago I had one in the shop for bands. Clearly under the boards was marked "Ship to Ford."
No doubt in my mind it was true. For how long, that is a guessing game.

[Kerry]

Just found another article from 1916 about Fords Utility in Fire Department, although it doesn't say who builds them but states that they are being sold by, The Ford representative also referred to as the Ford salesman further into the article, So why not be painted red from the start if the intent was for them to be in a fire department.
The fire department T Fords were called the "Mosquito Fleet"
Ford also had his own fire department at the Ford plants as well.

[CudaMan]

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[CudaMan]

I have an original 1915 edition of the book "Ford Methods and the Ford Shops" and can't recall seeing a section talking about the usage of wood crates or scraps. It may be in there somewhere, but unfortunately the book doesn't have an index to make it easy to find. I read the body section of the book in detail and didn't see any mention of it.

If someone has a copy of the book and better recall than I, can you direct me to the section that talks about the usage of scrap wood?

[John kuehn]

It’s pretty much known that Ford was a practical guy and that usually could be seen in the way he built and produced his Model T. The more the better and what ever it took within reason he would do to increase production. If there were ways he could take a short cut and save time and money along the way it was done.
Ford got away from different colors on his cars in 1917 and black was the only color until 1926. Easier and faster with just one color.
I’ll bet he would use the wood on shipping crates for something since there was undoubtedly lots of it. Floor boards, small wood pieces for the hood shelf’s and other wood pieces could be made from crate wood.
Did it happen for sure? It wouldn’t surprise me if it did since he wasn’t building a Rolls Royce. It was a car for the regular folks.

[DanTreace]

Jem

Just a myth!

Ford made boards from fresh stocks, and later years did get boards from vendors who supplied the many branch operations.

Photo from Ford Methods and The Ford Shops, (1914) drilling holes in floor boards for metal trim plates.

And reply by Edsel Ford, President as to no basis of floor boards made from shipping crates! Myth has lived on since the T was new! (Photos used with permission of The Henry Ford, all rights reserved, for educational use)

[Steve Jelf]

Ford got away from different colors on his cars in 1917 and black was the only color until 1926.

Not quite. The switch to "any color you want as long as it's black" was on 1914 models.

[big2bird]

Jem

Just a myth!

Ford made boards from fresh stocks, and later years did get boards from vendors who supplied the many branch operations.

Photo from Ford Methods and The Ford Shops, (1914) drilling holes in floor boards for metal trim plates.


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And reply by Edsel Ford, President as to no basis of floor boards made from shipping crates! Myth has lived on since the T was new! (Photos used with permission of The Henry Ford, all rights reserved, for educational use)

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55B06EC6-91E4-447B-BD89-7D480DE76F5F.jpeg

A carefully worded denial from a Major Auto Company is not proof, and was run by a lawyer first. Guaranteed.
I know what I have seen, and maybe THAT car had repairs at a dealer, and the body shop did it. Who knows for sure.
Certainly Edsel was not told, nor would care.

[DanTreace]

Jeffrey

I’m certainly not implying the floorboard you viewed wasn’t supplied by Ford, could be in terms of so many millions made.

But, in that regard, Ford so closely maintained part cost to the pennies, in selling the lowest price car! To do such cost accounting, part drawings of each piece were made and costed, so calculations done to very accurate degree. Haphazard boards from boxes don’t provide such cost controls Ford needed, no less the just in time fabrications on grand scales.

Note the many factory #’s assigned to wood pieces and cleats underside, that make up a set of front floorboards for the Improved Fordor....quite an effort.

[kmatt2]

As the book Ford Methods & Ford Shops shows The Ford Motor Co kept track and analyzed the labor time it took to do anything. So if you add up the time it would take to take apart the shipping crates, remove nails, cut to size, plus the eneveable remnets and damaged waste you get a cost. Now get the cost of new wood in proper width already only needing to be cut to proper length. The mounting holes as per picture are needed in both cases. I'll bet that as much wood as Ford used, and he owned the trees already in later years, that new was cheaper.
I will bet that where he could Ford would reuse the crates to ship finished subassemblies to the. branches., or replacement parts to the dealers. Also if the supplier was close by he could send the crate back to for reuse.
I once owned a 1926 T tudor that had original floor boards and they showed no signs of other use. Of course this is not proof but I think that the 1922 Ford letter from Edsel is, if they did reuse the crates Ford would have said something like this is how Ford keeps the cost of a new Ford down for the new Ford customers.

[Jeff Hood]

I don't know if they are made from crates, but the original appearing floorboards in my 1925 coupe certainly look like they are made from scrap. The upper boards consist of eight pieces dovetailed together, one id even tapered from about 3/4" to a little over 1" over its length. The side edges are dadoed or grooved and boards are inserted to stiffen the floorboard.

[Kerry]

The Ford motor company would be in denial when asked, if Edsel had admitted to using recycled or reclaimed wood, then it's not a new car.

[kmatt2]

Jeff,. See John Regan's Jan 2009 note on floor boards and the use of " Linderman Stock " as permissable starting in 1924. This type of stock sounds like what your 1925 Cp floor boards are made from. My 1926 2 dr floor boards were not like Linderman Stock but were solid slats with cleats on the bottom. Soo many cars made by Ford soo many suppliers.

[Wayne Sheldon]

Did it ever happen? I don't know. Did it never happen? I don't know that either. What I do know is that the effort to salvage more than a small amount of packing crate wood would cost a lot more than new wood would cost. Some of that wood may have found its way into floorboards as Linderman stock. Or not.
Most of the packing crates found their way into the many fires required in the factories in the form of briquets.
Earlier Fords bodies were provided by outside suppliers. Nearly all of those, and most outside supplied bodies throughout T production, the floorboards were made to fit the body and provided by the individual body supplier.
As for the "Deliver to Ford" printed on a floorboard? It is quite likely that many of the floorboards in many of the years were uniform of fit enough that the floorboards for a given run of bodies would be bundled for shipment alongside the bodies, and the top floorboard would be so labeled.

As for the red fire-car? Ford did run large orders in colors other than black for the telephone companies, other large commercial enterprises, and government orders. In relation to the millions of regular Fords, there weren't very many special order color cars built. The truth is, most commercial enterprises and government orders didn't care if it was black! But a few odd colors may have survived and been restored. I do know of one 1913 touring car that I personally know or met about a half dozen people that were deep enough inside that car to know, and they all say it was red inside in all the deepest corners, and say it was clearly originally red. Not what was applied during the only restoration it got. Absolute proof? No. But worthy of consideration.

[perry kete]

The Model T went thru some very tough times and roads and once the car was sold the owner could have replaced broken or damaged floor boards at home from creates. How many floorboards were replaced due to catching fire from the exhaust pipe?

Another possibility is that the floorboard that had "Ship to Ford" stamped on it was the top board on the stack of boards from the lumber mill. The boards may have been banded together and the shipping address stamped rather then a paper address on it. I have had several kegs of nails over the years and wooden ammo crates and the shipping address is stamped on them. No paper address label.

[Jem]

Thanks gentlemen, a fount of knowledge as ever. Thanks Mark for sending me off down the rabbithole of vintagemachinery.com. And Dan for the interesting letter from Office of Edsel Ford. But the one I had never heard of from Wayne was that Ford did runs of special colour cars for Government orders. I shall now fire off to the Automobile one of my 'smartarse letters' (to quote my wife).

[OilyBill]

I have a 1926 Franklin, and I have a lot of copies of the original factory blueprints for the car.
The floorboards in the Franklin, have drawings that note "To be made from Linderman Stock"
Franklin had a LOT of small scraps of wood around, since their chassis frames were wood up until about 1929. (Don't laugh! Wood DOES NOT suffer from fatigue like steel does, and the doors on my Franklin open and close like a bank vault door. After 94 years, no less!)
The Linderman machine takes small pieces of wood and make them into standard lumber sizes. This would have enabled Franklin (and Ford) to use virtually all the scrap wood produced by turning it into usable boards, and then running it through production again. I have no doubt that the Linderman machines at Ford turned out specific boards for use in production.
Probably the scrap from THOSE boards, (What little there might have been left over) was used to feed furnaces, soak up oil spills, etc.
"Kingsford" charcoal came from the sawdust generated during lumbering operations to supply wood to the Ford Motor Co. They didn't use up any good lumber for that purpose. strictly the sawdust from the lumber mills, and any small scrap wood that they processed.

[R.V.Anderson]

Floorboards made from specially built packing cases may be a myth, but the reverse is documented. When Ford recycled trade-ins from their dealers at the Rouge, the salvaged floor boards from these derelicts were made into packing crates.

[Pat Branigan Wisc]

My Brother has an original 11 and the boards are original, Made from crates. They have the name Simplex Manufacturing Co. Kansas City Missouri stamped in them assuming it was a roller as it is repeated ever few inches.

[Jem]

The only problem I have with that, Pat, is that it was established in old threads (see Cudaman post further up) that floorboard makers put their name on their products supplied to Ford. To know that those boards are from crates we have to know what Simplex Manufacturing made in 1911. If it's stamped every few inches, that suggests Simplex were in wood products.

[Jem]

A further thought. 1911 is outside our area of interest because bodies were made by outside coachbuilders, e.g. Beaudette, who would have supplied floorboards with the body. Anyone got a 1911 Kansas City trade directory?

[John Codman]

Ford did use the wood from crates, but not for T floorboards. He used the crates to make charcoal. Kingsford charcoal - still available today was started by Henry Ford and Edward Kingsford, whose wife was a cousin of Henry.

[RustyFords]

...As for the "Deliver to Ford" printed on a floorboard? It is quite likely that many of the floorboards in many of the years were uniform of fit enough that the floorboards for a given run of bodies would be bundled for shipment alongside the bodies, and the top floorboard would be so labeled.

That was my first thought when I read the post this refers to.

My company delivers small mountains of bundled items to local refineries with our own trucks and we mark the tops and sides of said bundles with a similar stamping.

We do so because the truck will make stops at more than one refinery on the same trip and it's just another very simple way to make sure that the correct items are being unloaded at the correct plant. The driver's are excellent and very rarely make mistakes but if they're unloading a bundle that's marked "Valero, Houston Refinery" and they're at Huntsman Chemical, then....oops. So, for us, it's a very cheap sort of redundancy that prevents shipping errors.