I made some great progress today. First I had to beef up the metal brake. Ill post more on that in another thread.
I finished cutting the tail gate panel by putting in the tail light holes and the foot step holes. For the tail light holes I used a 1-3\4" hole saw. It tends to wobble a bit while drilling with a hand drill. I then used a hand file to finish the edges out to the proper diameter. For the straight lines I used my trusty angle grinder with a zip disk and some steady hands. The foot holes were also cut out with the zip disk and then I finished them with a combination of a flap disk and a hand file. They took a bit of time but I really couldn't think of any other way to cut them out with the tools I have.
I had Metal Supermarket cut out all the sheet metal more on their shear. This saved me considerable time and ensured I had perfectly straight cuts and square corners. I bent all of the channels myself on the princess auto brake. The long channel had to be made in three pieces as the brake can only do 36" Even with the modifications, it was still stressing it quite a bit doing 16ga over 36" In the end it worked out well enough and I was able to tighten up the bends in the vise.
Before I do any welding, ill be cutting in the channels on the original tailgate to check for any reinforcing. I believe the hinges run the entire height of the tailgate.
When I first decided to rebuild the sides and the tailgate of the box, I didn't realize I would be doing the most difficult one first.
However with how well it is going the sides should be pretty straight forward. (knock on wood)