My build is a "coupe", therefore what I am reporting here my not interest most of you Book and other convertible builders. I also noticed that pretty good door making pictures have already been filed on this forum including one last week from NZ. His work seems excellent and if I had seen it earlier I may have approached my own doors differently. Any how here I am.
My doors are made of a lamination of two layers of thin mahogany plywood (each 3/16) and Gauge 16 aluminum. I made first the plywood lamination and clamped it to my car's chassis which as I said is a coupe therefore I already have roof tubes welded in place. The plywood (before lamination) espoused the gentle curve of the chassis. The second plywood layer was glued (carpenter glue) to the first one while clamped around the car's frame. That way the resulting lamination was presenting the exact curvature that the doors should have at the end of the construction. Then A 2 x 2" softwood brace was planed to shape and screwed/ glued to the 3/16" skins . Then I clamped a sheet of aluminum to the plywood lamination and glued them together with two part cold cure epoxy glue. Once the assembly was cured I cut the openings for the windows. (One could get away with less clamps than what I have used). The round corners were cut with a 3" hole saw under the miller (a regular drill press would do). The straight lines were cut with a jig saw (metal blade). The whole aperture was filed to eliminate imperfections.
The perimeter of the doors will be lined with automotive door plastic liners once the doors have been painted. The inside of the door (plywood) will be coated with two part epoxy resin West system 105/206 and later lined with leatherette or painted . The acrylic windows will be set up last and held in place with round head 3/16 machine screws (the heads look like solid rivets will be visible but not unattractive). The hardware: door closing mechanisms and hinges came from e trailers. The whole project did not seem to be overly complicated. The only critical part is to provide ample clamping in the process of laminating.
I will be pleased to field questions if any one is interested in this project.
