I was planning on doing a full tech piece on building this door, but I forgot to take pictures while I was doing most of the dirty work, so this is kinda just a summary. Anywho, the door is off a 54 Doretti Swallow, some might remember me showing fixing up the rear fender for this car in a post a few months back. The door was pretty twisted, it had been hit hard at some point in its life, and was never really fixed right.It had some half-assed brazed in patches, a bolt welded in as a structural member of the door, and a whole lot of filler and fiberglass. You can see some of the chunks I chipped off laying on the door in this pic. After I peeled the skin off, I cut out the bad frame pieces and beat out new pieces from 18ga. The whole door was done by hand, I dont even have a break to use, all the bends were made by clamping the sheet under a piece of heavy angle at the edge of a table and beating it over with a hammer. you can't see it here, but I made all the gaps on the door frame perfect to the fenders, though bigger than I ultimatly wanted. That way I could roll the skin around the frame,following the frame as closely as I could, and end up with good gaps. The only exception to the by hand comment was I took the skin to a guy and used his slip roll to put some shape the skin before I attached it to the frame. I tried to bend it over a piece of tube that was laying around, but I'm not what one would call a big guy, and that piece of steel just laughed at me. Here is a pic with the skin on and the door kinda in place(it wasnt aligned very well yet). Gaps needed a little tweeking in a couple places, but nothing more than a 1/16th or so. Over all I think it came out pretty good, especially for my first attempt at what was basically building a door from scratch. I learned a couple things that will make my next easier, and hopefully better.
Great work! Didn't anyone ever tell you that you can't do work like that without a bunch of really expensive tools? If they did, I'm glad you didn't listen! Tim D.
Doretti Swallow? Sounds like a porno. What is this car? Who made it and what does it look like? Very nice work on the door, by the way.
http://www.atspeedimages.com/limerock_2004/concours/1954_swallow_doretti/ and actually I'm a little dexlexic, its a Swallow Doretti
That's some impressive work. It's amazing what you can do with a few basic tools and a little patience when it comes to sheet metal work. Frank
looks very good, great job. is the new door skin just flat sheet with the top rolled? is there any crown in the door? thanks!
I thought I recognized the Swallow part from ealy Jaguar so I googled and came up with this. This may better describe the car, and you aren't dislexic, you had it right the first time. (I think it's a porn name too!) http://www.team.net/www/ktud/swallowd.html
That article states that the bodies are aluminum, is it incorrect? Anyway, that door sure looks a lot happier Rich
It could be the bodies were constructed like the early Austin-Hea;ys: The cowl with all its compound curves were crafted in AL, and the wings and bonnets were stamped in steel
The doors are the only all steel panels on the car. The hood and trunk lid are steel structure with aluminum skin, and front and rear fenders are aluminum, and the main body structure is aluminum with a steel inner structure. the doors are simple curves, no front to rear crown. these cars are flat sided from the rear of the front wheelwell to the front of the rear wheel well. well, I though I might catch some shit for it not being a traditional rod or custom, so I put the disclaimer in so I could say "I told you" if anyone started bitchin http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=108042 rear fender from this car, took a hit when the right rear tire blew. Other than that theres not a whole lot to show, I re-crowned the hood to fit the body better, aligned the trunk, which at first was believed to also need a re-crown, but didnt. I'm just doing the metal work on this car, which is really all I want to do. Maybe some day I will be considered competition for Metalshapes for metal work in Tucson... maybe not.
Hey, Pre war Jaguars were actually known as SS cars-( some mystery as to whether SS really stood for Swallow Sidecars) Swallow coachbuild- ing started life as a motorcycle side car builder, and moved on to cars. The SS handle was changed to Jaguar to avoid the nasty Nazi conatation, after WWII, and the Swallow coachbuilding sidecar arm sold off. Didn't Doretti use Triumph TR power trains? Great lookin door! Swankey devils C.C.
Nice work! Turned out real well, im making some quaters for my roadster right now i will have to do a tech on it too. -Chris
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