I have a 61 210 and need to replace some of the wood slats on the cargo flooring can anyone tell me what species of wood they are made of?
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1968 122S 1990 240 DL 1959 544 1961 210

Since everyone gave a different answer I'll second the vote for ash. I refinished the slats on my 67 with very good results. Thought they were oak but someone knowlegable corrected me and told me they are ash. Replacement kits are available from (for instance) VP Autoparts but, of course, at a price. If you can't find stock ash locally, you can probably find it from exotic wood suppliers (think boats) via the internet.

Good luck!

KaiS

Kai,
Granite Brick lives in New Hampshire, prime ash country.

GB,
I just sawed up a nice stem of ash for firewood. This may be more work than you want to tackle, but I've made ash slats for canoe building by taking a straight piece of stem and splitting it lengthwise with a maul and wedges. Ash splits very easily and nice and straight. I used to finish it with a draw knife, spokeshave and hand plane, but if you have, or know someone who has, a mechanical planer, you can just zip the strips through it to the right thickness.
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"62 PV544 (B20, M41), "71 142E, "93 240 Classic Wagon.

All the ones I've seen were vertical grain ash. White oak would look quite similar. The advantage of ash over oak is that that it doesn't stain blue on contact with steel and, if the varnish wears off, it doesn't weather black like oak. (Less acid content)
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"62 PV544 (B20, M41), "71 142E, "93 240 Classic Wagon.

I have no idea what the stock slats are made of, but when I restored my 445, I had strips of oak milled to the original width and thickness, and then cut them to length. When finished with varnish (no stain) they look good. However, if you're trying to match the original patina, you may have to experiment with stain to get the same color.

If I had to guess, the original slats were probably a hard pine as that's what the Swedish forests have in abundance. I don't think there are many hardwood trees in Sweden.

I would think they are birch. Most of the forest products coming out of Northern Europe are birch. I know the plywood used in the headlines of the 1800s were birch.

But I think use of oak would be better as it's pretty hard...

My slats ('59 Duett) were all refinishable, but the four back pieces were not good. I got 1/4 Russian brich ply, which my woodworker wife says will finish up looking very much like the originals.

SWEDISH