My first big fabrication - Flatbed for F350

[sticks]

Completely spaced taking a pic.

Here is what I meant by the swing out hinge;



With the tailgate closed, it will be flush with the bed walls, and be 1/32"ish above the deck. When open, it will be 1/4"ish away from the bed.

I'm sure there is a math formula to tell you where the pivot point needs to be given the thickness/depth of the tailgate to rotate 90* and be flush with the bed as shown in the pic. Layman's method will be trial and error, and easiest with a mockup.

My boss wanted the tailgate to have a flush bed with the tailgate all the way down, and it is not strong enough to support the amount of weight these guys will put on it if it was held at 90*. I cold have made it stronger, but it would have weighed waaaaayyyy too much. We don't have the tooling to bend sheet metal to build in structural support instead of adding ribs.

If you did not want a surface mount hinge, I'd go look at a pickup - same principle, except that under the tailgate, there will have to be a cut out area.