Weeks have passed and I did not update anything...
You might go think I've turned lazy!?
Not really!
So here what I've been busy doing these past weekends: mainly continuing my door restoration...
While storms were raging outside and mother nature was doing her best to transform my garden in a swimming pool and at night trying to freeze that,
I've spent my weekends freezing my butt in my garage focussing on the details, hoping for better days...
As the inside of the door was a rust nest, I've enjoyed playing with acid and water in the cold. A step that was really needed! Thx to the wet, windy and very cold weather, it wasn't really much fun, and because I also needed to protect everything right away to make sure everything would not turn brown again in this humid air within matter of days, my heat gun has been quite busy... Too cold to paint, everything went under a zinc layer waiting for better days.
Finally my zincor plate (high quality car metal of 1350 x 600 x 1mm) in arrived. Outside the accepted sizes for regular transport, it took a while to even find a place that would not only had the long size but also able deliver it.
2 weeks ago, Spring was here for a few hours, and I've jumped on the occasion to measure, transfer and mark everything on that flat plate, make the necessary "no_way_back" choices for the poor outter skin. And finally cut it out.
At this point, the door was looking even worse. In fact, there was no much left on it to define it as a door!! Once the outter skin massive piece was out, it was obvious that thx to some thick stone protection that had been sprayed in the past and the reinforcement not touching the outterskin, it's obvious that the acid had not been able to reach the back side of the reinforcement. (I know now that if the other door needs a derust but no skin removal, that I will need to build a bath to submerge it fully to get rid of this misery)
Anyway, back to brushing, acid playing and other dirty jobs to end up with a rust free frame, all under zinc and epoxy.
In between activities, I have also cut the inner skin to accept european speakers, and as this wasn't original, I have scored original speakers grilles in ginger and will install all as if it's been ordered like that 50 years ago.
As I have now a door skin to build, no matter what, I need to have a clean outter skin to fix it on, and I also wanted to make sure there were no other "surprises" hidden behind the paint as it would be the time to address them first before even think outter skin. Once cleaned up, the top of the skin was showing a perfect state, so protected the welding region and sprayed a protective primer.
Finding the metal was one thing, but being able to fold it another. Found in my town a company with a massive digital metal breaker able to press anything bellow 3 meters.
My plate was looking tiny in there!
After the coordinates, pressure and angle are entered, both fold were made. first the lower lip, 15mm @ 110 degrees (you need keep it open to assemble) and the other, non parallel to the side, from 112 up to 128 mm from the lip @23 degrees. I bet most of you never stood still that the lower part of our door is not straight at all!
Back home, found out it was wrong!!! NOOOOOOOOO!! All was good except it was pressed for the other door! The direction of the pressing was the exact opposite I needed!!
Because I needed to add crown on the biggest part and didn't know exactly where I would cut, I had ordered 20cm extra to play with. Pfffew, there was still enough space to go back there and press it on the other side. Turned out, by luck, I got just 4cm left over to allow me to do this.
Even got a bonus in this: I have now the entire lower skin ready for the other side!
When you need to add a bit of crown into the 1mm plate and have nothing long or round enough in house. What's better than a city street light pal??
So despite receiving strange looks from people walking by for some reason ( tho a guy pressing himself to a street pal, indeed does look a bit weird!!
)
With no shame, I ended up with the crown I wanted!
Because the metal, even if ok has been massaged by barbaric repairs in the past and that I had carefully picked a place on the skin to cut right where the skin is flat before going up again. I went for the lap weld method, not to mention, this reduces chances of warping and ugly welds on the other side that I would not be able to access being behind the reinforcement, it was also a way to straighten and support the old metal to the new perfectly straight metal.
Some necessary attention on the sides, where the lap must stop before the sides of the frame are, and be 100 flush. So took my time and cut these in 3 steps after lots of tests fits. No room for error there!
Once the cuts, future lips extra on the side cut and pre-bent by hand to help keep the new metal in place. I've started welding. It took no less than 6 passes to cover the entire length. making sure to leave no chance of warping. In between cooling sessions, I was gradually forming the lips more an more...
Hammering lips might sound easy, it may be is on a pre-cut, pre-folded door skin. But here, we talk 1mm Zincor metal, no shape in it at all. We go from flat 2D plane to, and especially on the front, to 2 different curvatures. The round shape you see at the gaps and the profile of the door itself, and you want the skin to really squeeze the guide too!
At first the metal was quite thick and in order to reach a nice thickness, 3mm I needed to make my neighbours happy with loads of hammering noises.
trust me an empty door shell does produce quite some decibels!! :O
Constantly checking the old skin, I eventually got both sides shaped and folded as I wanted.
More happiness for my neighbours!
I needed grind that long weld... I've actually stopped at 90% as it was really "asso", as time was running out and as the weather was this past weekend the first great day of the year. I'll finish that grinding somewhere during the week.
And so became the first spray of the year a reality! After trying the inner skin for fit, I've marked and taped the points where the spot welds will be and primed, then painted the inner side with body black.
I have also primed my hinges while at it... but I want them done other ways.
Pretty happy with the results so far. Here's how both sides are looking now while the rest is drying. I'll of course handle the entire inside of the door later on,
but even with this quick primer, the lips and the shape are pretty ok to me and one could even think it started to look like a 71 door again!
This morning went look, and yup that doesn't look bad! The restored and plated plates will look pretty in there !!
But that's details for next weekend
To be continued...
