The story behind the creation of the Bedder-Hedder is one that may be familiar to many truck owners. It begins with a load of cargo-in this case, a steel plaster-mixer drum strapped to a pallet and placed in the bed of a Ford crew cab dualie.
| hedder Bedder completely Installed
What the driver did not plan for during the three-hour drive to San Diego, and never even considered was a possibility, was that the pallet would try to force its way into the back seat of the truck. The experience led the driver on a path he never thought about taking: that of an inventor, fabricator, and holder of several trademarks. "Like most truck owners," Mitch Weiss says, "I assumed that my truck bed was a fortress unto itself. There was no way to conceive that Dodge, Ford, or GM would not do everything in their power to make the truck bed with the strength of a bank vault, but of course, they don't.
"When I was cut off during that drive home and hit my brakes hard," Weiss says, "the force of that pallet hitting the front of the truck bed, also known as the bed head, was so jarring and loud that I thought I had been rear-ended by a semitruck! In reality, I discovered that my vaultlike truck bed was really a cardboard box, and the repairs cost me $1,400, as the bed head bent and damaged the rear of the truck cab.
"Once the damage was repaired," Weiss continues, "I had a local fabricator create a 1/8-inch steel cap, which went over the top of the bed head and halfway down the face; I also created some serious bedrail covers, but that's another story. Soon that truck gave way to another Ford. By this time, my family began camping and off-roading, and I started a flooring-removal business and had to transport 3-gallon propane tanks, so I began adding clamps and eyebolts to my bed-head covers."
With the purchase of an '02 Chevy 2500 extra-cab Duramax, Weiss finally created the ultimate bed-head cover. It covered the entire front of the truck bed and had a slot for a custom-made fuel-jug holder for five jugs and two propane tank holders, all easily removed if the entire bed needed to be used. He also created rail covers with 1/2-inch D-rings welded to the sides at all four corners. His truck bed was bulletproof . . . but what about everyone else's?
"My next-door neighbor bought a used Ford F-250 Super Duty that was in great condition, except the former owner, a tile contractor, had a load of tile on a pallet (sound familiar?) slide into the bed head and it was dented," Weiss says. "That afternoon, I envisioned my new company, gave it a name (PU-Products, which stands for Pick-Up), and developed the Bedder-Hedder." With the help of his wife, Karin, the company has flourished.
The Bedder-Hedder is made of 1/8-inch aluminum diamond-plate, and the two models PU-Products currently produces are for '88-'07 fullsize Chevy and GMC trucks and '99-'07 Ford Super Duty pickups. The Bedder-Hedder will fit over spray-on liners and may be used over a dented bed head, thus covering it, giving back its integrity, and improving the resale value without spending many hundreds of dollars to repair it-or thousands to replace it.
The Bedder-Hedder may also be used with a drop-in bedliner, provided the front is cut off. Of course, the smart move is to install one when your truck is new.
The Bedder-Hedder provides strength to the top and bottom of the bed head and has a slot on either end for holding Jug Rax accessories. These four holders are designed to carry one or two fuel jugs, coolers, or five-gallon buckets. The Jug Rax are easy to install and stay in place with a single set screw. They allow the owner to stack 4 inches of drywall or plywood into the bed without the need to remove them.
The Bedder-Hedder is a great accessory for people who put quads and side-by-side vehicles in their truck beds, the formed top section will protect the bed head from bending, and because the Bedder-Hedder has five precut holes near the top, it is easy to add on several of PU-Products' forged and powdercoated, 3/8-inch, American-made eyebolts for attaching tie-downs.
The Bedder-Hedder is available with a powdercoat finish. The standard color is Silver Vein, a textured black and gray combination that looks similar to a spray-on lining. PU-Products can also do custom colors and can even water-jet-cut custom logos and install LED lighting behind the cutouts.
The Next Phase
After producing the first run of Bedder-Hedders, Weiss suddenly discovered that every truck he saw on the road had a toolbox, so apparently no one needed his product. This was probably due to a lack of sleep and fried nerves from worrying after purchasing 25 16-foot-long sheets of aluminum diamond-plate and watching them all be cut and formed. This epiphany led to the creation of the Jug Plate mounting system and the Jug Rax fuel-jug holder. The Jug Plate is simply a 15x8-inch plate containing the slot and retaining nut of the Bedder-Hedder with mounting holes at each corner. The Jug Plate mounts on the front of a truck bed and blends right into the diamond-plate finish of the box. It is separated from the box by a 5/16-inch nut and washer. This allows the Jug Rax lip to slip into the slot for fastening. This is a great setup for contractors and gooseneck-trailer owners. The Jug Rax and Baja Rax are also great for those who need to carry lots of extra fuel but don't want the expense or lost bed space of a permanent transfer tank. The Jug Plate can also be mounted on flatbeds, utility beds, trailers, and the like.
"Not long after the Jug Plate was finished, Weiss says, "my wife yelled at me and called me an idiot for not jumping on the Yamaha Rhino craze and ordered me to invent something." That is how the Rhino Rax was born. It is simply a Line-X-coated Jug Plate with mounting hardware to fit it to the bed head of a two-seat Rhino. Now you can safely transport extra fuel and coolers in the bed of your Rhino, and when you need to haul something big, you remove the Jug Rax.
"While off-roading with Rhinos," Weiss says, "we found that the kids riding quads and motorcycles always run out of gas before the side-by-side. We recommend carrying extra fuel and some other safety and survival gear. To address this, we created the You May Need This! Survival Kit, which has a tow strap, a first aid kit, a siphon, jumper cables, and a signaling reflector, fitted into a nylon bag, which can be Velcro'd to the tubes of an off-road vehicle or under the seat of a truck or Jeep."
The Jug Plate/Rhino Rax can be adapted to fit any side-by-side vehicle or golf cart by using different mounting bolts. PU-Products also produces holders for backpack pesticide sprayers for landscapers and exterminators.
"Now I was on a roll," Weiss says. "No longer an idiot-for the moment-I created the Ranger Rax for the Polaris Ranger, using its expanded anchor technology, and created an accessory that fits into the holes in the cargo bed. The Ranger Rax can even be fitted with a set of Stearns Fin Grips for transporting a rifle or bow. The Ranger Rax is also a great place to mount a whip flag, which is required in some BLM areas."
PU-Products' main focus is to safely transport difficult-to-transport items, but it had another goal, too: to make everything locally. The company's tag line, "Made here. Not there," means the products are made not only in America, but also in the local community. "When I created this product line," Weiss says, "I set out to make everything heavy-duty; I wanted the Bedder-Hedder and all the accessories to be useful for the life of the truck or side-by-side vehicle. I also wanted installation to be easy."
And now PU-Products is well-known for its tough products that make life easier for off-road enthusiasts and contractors. So in the end, Weiss turned out to be a pretty smart guy after all.
