2010 at the Hammond Barn

[Grant Bowker]

The rebuild on the door frames started last year as an experiment to see if Bob and assistants could repair/rebuild the rusted bottoms of 11 cab door frames since it's tough to find NOS ones without making a road trip to the Netherlands. The first one worked out quite well using sheet metal bent into a shallow channel form. The original channel had an extra fold on one face that is intended to fold the outer door skin around. Bob is planning to make the skin anchor part as a separate piece and weld it onto the channel as we weren't sure we'd be able to bend the combined section as easily as the simple channel. In hindsight, it might well have been made to work as a single piece given the ease of bending the simple channel (once the flanges were heated). Bob was content with the result of last year's frame (shown hanging on the chair) so we went to work on the matching frame for the second door. Bending the curve was easy, so was notching and bending the corners. Then we noticed that the shop had only bent one channel to the size Bob had asked for and that that channel had been used last year. Bob was depressed thinking that he'd have to wait another week while he got a new one bent up. I was more optimistic and started pounding on the channel to reduce the oversize. A bit later, after hammering, squeezing in the vice and torquing with an adjustable wrench the new part seemed to be either bent or straight where appropriate and match the profile of the original frame so Bob zapped it in place and I ground down the welds. The final photo shows Bob admiring the frame. We still need to add the reinforcement plate at the bottom of the second door, add the reinforcing channel to box the frame at the point the restraining strap had distorted the frame and add the skin securing flanges. The bottom of the second frame looks distorted in the photo but didn't seem to be bent when working on it. This will be checked and if needed fixed. If a small hammer applied gently won't fix it, a larger hammer will be tried, if that fails, heat it and beat it.