Fabricating new door skins for a Model A

[MP&C]

Scott from Kahiko Customs in Charles City VA showed up early yesterday with two doors for a Model A. 90 years or so of carnage has taken it's toll and we were collaborating with him to make some new door skins.





Given that we opted to go ahead and make both door skins to have a more consistent finish on these. Paper patterns were taken to capture the pertinent details, and some oversized blanks were cut out of 18 Gauge cold rolled steel. The Powell hammer made quick work of adding shape to the skin...











Once we had our shape needed, the upper beltline bead was added using some aluminum dies we made for the Lennox nibbler.





For the lower bead detail, we wished to use the folded flange as a guide in the dies, so the tipping dies in the Lennox were used to fold the lower flange..





Tipping the flange...





Adding the lower bead detail






the new skin was then test fit before we trimmed and folded the side flanges..





The side flanges were folded over to 45* along the un-beaded area, then our dies for the Lennox clamped in their respective location by aligning the edge along the fold line and tightening in the bench vise. Then a body hammer folded the bead areas over to 90* and the remainder of the straight bends reinstalled into the tipping wheel and folded to 90*.

Looks like these will make a much better job than trying to sort out the old skins..