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Christopher's Web Site
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Date: 10-30-2015
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Number of Hours: 4.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Lower Door Frame Cover Plate
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As you can see from the first photo, the door frame looks very unfinished without a cover for the lower frame at the hinge location. There is nothing about making this cover in the construction manual, but there are several examples online from other builders that disliked the unfinished look as much as I do.
At the recommendation of my great PA buddy Tom (HI TOM!!), I prepared, primed, and riveted the lower door frame pieces onto the door sill metal. The reason is that because you are trying to mount a radius to a flat surface, there are many ways in which the joint can settle when only attached by temporary clecos. If you drill the rivet holes, THEN rivet the frame to the sill, your hole will most likely no longer match up. He couldn’t have been more correct. I actually had to do much more adjustments to the sill piece in order to make clearance for the cover to fit between the sill and the frame. Thanks Tom!
Speaking of the sill piece, I don’t think you can tell from the photos, but I also had to measure and remove the sill panel several times in order to cut a flat area for the cover to join with the sill. Before, and from the plans, the sill panel has a radius to match the curvature of the bubble. The sill had to be modified to have a flat area matching the length of the newly fabricated cover piece.
I began fabricating the cover piece by making a cardboard template before I cut out a sheetmetal form.
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Unfinished frame area
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Primed and riveted frame to sill
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Fabrication
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