"I done ghetto fixed it!"

If you've talked to me for any length of time, you've probably heard bike shop stories. And, you've probably heard about the time that a customer came in with a bike and a hammer and proudly declared that he "done ghetto fixed it!!". Say what you want, but he did the best he could in his situation, with his constraints. Now, 20 years later, I too have done ghetto fixed it!

You might recall, I had a rust hole in the driver's door sill. I cut away most of the bad metal, and cut the hole as neatly as I could...

Then, I cut and shaped a piece of stainless steel to fit the hole. At this point, a purist would think that I would weld the piece in place, but I don't own a welder, I don't intend on learning to weld, and I decided to get by as best I could.

The piece has been "welded" in place with epoxy, and I used epoxy to level things out...

 For the thinner vertical section, a mix of metal mesh, epoxy paste, and epoxy putty was used to fill things. In the end, a lot of the edges of the mesh was ground away, but by then, there was enough epoxy in place.

I sprayed it with flat black to see where I needed to make improvements. You're seeing the final result (after a couple of passes filling and sanding). It's not perfect by any stretch, but this area will be under a layer of vinyl wrap, a rubber pad, and the rubber door seal. I didn't see the point of making the shape perfect.

The passenger side is coming along similarly - sheet metal + epoxy, but there's more extensive damage leading to more extensive work. More details later...

Shapeways Redux

I received my completed parts from Shapeways. After ordering a couple of test pieces in different materials, I settled on a polished white plastic. The letters look great and very "real". 

I also ordered three pieces that would make up the mounting system for the main plastic panel. Printing the whole panel would have been extremely expensive, and too large for the print process, so I printed 3 thin pieces that were sized to fit the printing constraints, and matched the mounting points of the real Porsche reflector. The these pieces also served as a template for the precise holes needed to mount each letter.

After I glued the printed "template" to the back of the plastic panel, I drilled out each hole with a drill press. 

 The resulting fit was perfect - each letter fits exactly in place. The panel also makes a perfect holder for spraying the letters. I'm likely going to go with a steel/aluminum finish. More about that later...