Today's hot rodders have many more possibilities when building their cars than were available in the early days. Perfect metalwork is almost the norm and replica steel pieces can save even the worst old bodies. The '32 five-window we've been working on had fairly good doors, but the doorskins needed some help. Erik Hansson from Scandinavian Street Rods in Huntington Beach examined the doors and felt we would have much better final results by replacing the full doorskins, instead of patching up parts of them.
But who makes doorskins for a five-window? The answer is Bobby Walden at Walden Speed Shop. So we paid him a visit at SO-CAL Speed Shop, where he has his big Yoder "hammer" machine to form the sheetmetal with. There's more shape to a doorskin than you might think, and it takes some time in the Yoder to hammer it out. He started by building a buck of the shape he wanted to finish with and then worked a sheet of 19-gauge sheetmetal through the Yoder to hammer it into the shape of the original doorskin. It takes time to get the right shape and Bobby checked it with the buck as he went. When he was happy with the shape, he used another machine to roll the edges and fold it 90 degrees on three sides.
With the doorskins done, we brought the car over to Scandinavian Street Rods to get the work done.