Shaping roadster panels

bob w · Aug 21, 2012

That's very nice. Is there a way to put a low crown in a panel like your door with only hand tools?

BJinaTJ · Aug 21, 2012

bob w said:
That's very nice. Is there a way to put a low crown in a panel like your door with only hand tools?

You beat me to it...

Sorry if I am confusing anyone with the backwards pics. I am in no way saying this is how things are done, just the way that I tackled it..

Below is a pic after I cut the sheet metal for the door skin allowing 3/8 around the edge to lap over the inner door structure. As you can see there are markings on the metal going back and forth. These are the paths that I took with a hammer to shape it. The outside of the door is slightly convex. To get this shape I put the outside of the door down on my steel bench after I made sure was very flat and clean and started hitting all over the back with a slight radius hammer following these paths to make sure I hit every square inch about 10 times. This action slightly raised the other side creating the convex shape.

In the picture below you will see the door skin that has already been shaped. At this time the door skin is convex and looks like a door skin without a raised belt line. To create the belt line I clamped a 1/4" thick bar to my table and allowed the section that would become the belt line hang over. I then chased that 1/4" bar with a well rounded edge 1" flat chisel (The sharp edge is ground off) and a hammer. slowly beating the panel down to create the belt line.

Soon I will be starting the inner door structure..

BJinaTJ · Aug 23, 2012

I pushed the bead in from the wrong side in case no one noticed..

BJinaTJ · Oct 8, 2012

I have a frame I have been building for another Model A project of mine. I sat this little beauty on it and now I am torn... It is going to be hard to keep with my original plans.