It's been open for a few days as we plotted the best plan of attack to replace the upholstered door panel; the door was held in place by an official hillbilly style bungee while the door panel and retaining strap was removed for replacement.



As you can see. it was a patchwork quilt of parts that greeted anyone that entered, including the gray vinyl base, the ramshackle/falling off plastic latch cover, the hardware store special white handle, the green plush decorative panel or the multi patterned upholstered padded panel to top it off- it was time to refine!

One of the many benefits of living at the sign shop is having it provide the ultimate hi-tech craft and project shop. I measured the door, lock and handle placement, then set up the pattern in our CAD software which would allow me to cut a door panel out of whatever substrate we decided on. First though, a paper pattern confirmed that the layout was correct, and anything that we cut would fit.



(Paper is a lot easier to change that flat cut aluminum.)

We browsed some wood products at Home Depot the other day, then rummaged through the sign substrate bin and came up with a perfect panel combo: Alumalite (a durable aluminum / plastic composite) in a duranodic bronze matte finish up top, and a gloss black toe kick panel at the base. Installed looks very nice. We'll add a sleek handle in the next few days and the bottom sweep rubber to keep the air and dirt outside when closed, but it looks done from the curb view.


Meila supervising the CNC routing of the door panel.


Finished panels in place; door retaining strap has now been reattached and there's no more swingin' door on this bus.