Back in the day, rather than spending ages trying to repair a vehicle door if it was a bit more damage than a simple dent, but not enough to warrant replacing the whole door, you would simply replace the "skin".
The outer skin is folded over the metalwork which comprises the actual door body, all along the edges. You would make hacksaw cuts at the points to both sides of the bottom of the window glass, then grind through the folded edges, to remove the skin. We prefer pics here, rather than lengthy descriptions, so here goes:
So, a friend of mine was replacing a door skin and needed some better light than just the overhead ones in the shop. Cue a 12V inspection light, a discharged 12V battery, and a battery charger. And a grinder...
There was a bang. Bits of plastic and acid everywhere, luckily we both had safety glasses on, but the funny part was my friend stood there, looking at the back end of the grinder he had just been using, which was now completely minus the power cord and half of the plastic casing. We washed everything down with a hose, to dilute the acid, but by the time we got home, our clothes were pretty much falling off.
The outer skin is folded over the metalwork which comprises the actual door body, all along the edges. You would make hacksaw cuts at the points to both sides of the bottom of the window glass, then grind through the folded edges, to remove the skin. We prefer pics here, rather than lengthy descriptions, so here goes:
So, a friend of mine was replacing a door skin and needed some better light than just the overhead ones in the shop. Cue a 12V inspection light, a discharged 12V battery, and a battery charger. And a grinder...
There was a bang. Bits of plastic and acid everywhere, luckily we both had safety glasses on, but the funny part was my friend stood there, looking at the back end of the grinder he had just been using, which was now completely minus the power cord and half of the plastic casing. We washed everything down with a hose, to dilute the acid, but by the time we got home, our clothes were pretty much falling off.