"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...