My Introduction to Welding

I took an autobody class in order to gain confidence for some future projects. I had a scooter that needed some paint and body work, and another Heinkel Car that was in poor shape.

I had a project in mind: Take two bad doors and make one decent door for use on my project car.

Let's start with the doors:

Door on left had dents all over; the one on the right was rotted

The insides weren't much better

I chose the door on the left to be base for creating one door out of two, primarily because the inside piece was fairly solid.

At least 7 layers of paint!

The main door had typical rust at the bottom, plus was seemingly held together by multicolor layers of paint.It also had signs of previous repairs. I removed a lot of bondo by using a hot air gun and a putty knife.

Using hammers and dollies to bang out dents

Some more rot- we'll deal with that later

I stripped the layers of paint and got to an off- white layer of fairly stable paint. I think this was the original paint. 

It turns out that the inner and outer door parts are held together with spot welds around the window, and the outer edge is simply crimped on. I peeled back the outer lip, ground down the spot welds, and then cut off the top of the blue door.

Heinkel front door with top outer skin removed

Good view of the crimped outer skin around the inner frame. It is covered
 with weatherstripping on a finished car

 Here's the door with the top welded on.

Heinkel "Frankendoor"

 Here are some welding closeups. I had some help from the teacher, but I think they came out pretty well:

Left Exterior

Right Exterior

Left Interior

Right Interior

My remaining tasks are to ground the welds a bit more, fill and then paint.

The bottom of the door isn't great:

Interior rotted section removed

I have a new outer replacement piece: I'm ordering a new interior from Jim's Microcars in the UK. Stay tuned, I think I'll finish this product in the fall. It's riding and driving season again in Massachusetts!