Tackling a door handle dilema

You wouldn't know it wasn't factory unless I told you.

Some make little “boo-boos.” Some pull big ol’ “boners.” Call ’em what you like, we all make mistakes. Whenever we do, cheating might come to mind. Speakin’ of cheating, just the other day, while thumbing through some older photographs, a good example came to light.

Whether they’re original equipment or reproductions, early Ford outside door handles, such as these on our Deuce five-window project, come with some mighty sharp edges. If they’re over-tightened, they’ll cut right through their dainty rubber pads. In this particular instance, one had cut deeply into the car’s new finish, creating a bubbled-up effect that showed in the paint. Although it was too late, the new door handles’ sharp edges did get filed down smoother.

As painters go, I believe I’m extra-conscientious. Yet somehow, while turning a screwdriver during final assembly, my eyeballs let me down.

No painter enjoys painting things twice. The idea of repairing this damage was somewhat less than exciting. Sure, we could feather, prime, prep, spot-repair and again clear the already cut ‘n’ buffed door, but wouldn’t cheating be worth a try?

Like the smokin’ gun, here’s the sharp-edged handle that cut beyond its rubber pad. To the right is the bubbled-up damage. We could repaint, but, of course, we’d rather cheat.

Our handles and their rubber pads are Vintique reproduction items. Just like Henry’s own, the pads are pretty thin and they don’t extend far beyond the bezel portion of the handles. If there’d been another pad available, and just overall slightly larger, our little oops might’ve passed and gone unnoticed.

After searchin’ long enough, it became clear that the needed pads didn’t exist. With zero experience casting rubber parts, it was up to me to make my own. Research ‘n’ development commenced on the bench, with familiar materials such as polyester body filler, a can of that rubbery tool handle goo and the leading-brand aerosol cooking spray, which I was thinking might suffice as mold release.

Here’s our mold made from body filler, before ‘n’ after final shaping. In the right-side photo, the impression is relieved around the outer edge to produce a slightly larger pad.

Here are two components that didn’t work so well. The cooking spray mold release dried up with a texture. The rubbery goo dried up slowly, and was too soft for our purposes.

Here’s what actually did work: real mold release and Duramix 4229 urethane seam sealer. Notice how cleanly our new pad pulls from the mold?

Before we go any further, let’s rewind to the part about aerosol cooking spray. That’s not a good thing to be using in a building that houses a spray booth. Under that same roof, we also had mechanical work going on, so I always tried to keep my coworkers aware of paint shop impurities. When I picked up the can of cooking spray, one of those guys noticed.

Meanwhile, back at the bench, mold-making continued. A small amount of polyester body filler was scooped into the trimmed-out bottom of a quart-size plastic mixing cup. Along with catalyst, a splash of resin was added for leveling.

For a usable plug of sorts, I shot some cooking spray onto a new Vintique door handle pad. Moving quickly, I made my negative impression by pushing the plug pad into the soft, curing filler. The third or fourth time was the charm, as the pushed-in plug pad came out fairly clean.

As a size comparison, from left to right, we have a pair of stock-dimension Vintique pads, and a pair of our own. Ours cover a slightly larger area — and our goof.

With the plug pad removed, the cooking spray residue was chemically cleansed from the still-porous mold. Following that step, the outer edge of the impression required relief. A small piece of folded 80-grit sandpaper worked well to start. The relieved area was final-shaped with 120-grit before urethane primer-surfacer was sprayed on the face of the mold. From there, wet prep began with 500-grit, and for slippery smoothness, I went ahead and shot it with a single-stage urethane topcoat.

The mold’s slick urethane finish would certainly ease the extraction of our new rubbery pads. Mold release would still be necessary, but since the face of the mold was no longer porous, cleanup would be pretty easy — in theory.

As you might imagine, the earliest prototypes didn’t turn out so well. As mold release, the cooking spray was working, but it had a texture that wouldn’t flow. Still observing my struggle, my coworker ’fessed up about some secret mold release — real stuff that he’d been hiding all along. That helped a lot, but other materials still required rethinking.

The rubbery tool handle goo was slow to stiffen and still too wimpy after finally drying. Plan B involved Duramix 4229, a quick-curing two-part urethane seam sealer. With that substitution, the bench became a pad factory.

The urethane seam sealer cures extremely shiny. These photos are of the same pad, before ‘n’ after sanding the edges smooth. To the right, it’s been bead-blasted to curb gloss.

Once cured and pulled from the mold, the larger pads required a little smoothing around the edges. They were also way too shiny. After a bit of sanding, they took a short ride in the ol’ bead-blasting cabinet and came out lookin’ good. Most importantly, we’d successfully cheated our way out of trouble — again.

Earlier, we’d wondered how exaggerated pads would fit in with actual-size surroundings. With space between, we’re good. Perhaps best of all, we didn’t have to repaint that door.

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