Newbee needs some help

Disclaimer - these people working in steel fabrications companies vastly more street-wise than me about these things. Anyway...

There is "flame straightening". Look it up. No mechanical effort - all in use of heat.

Force alone - possible. You might have to add packers to force a "reverse bow" to force yield in the opposite direction, so on releasing the clamps its bounce-back is to straight.

Clamping to something strong and stiff while welding is a good strategy. Restraint the weld while it's cooling and would distort in the first instance... Make sure your clamps are strong enough though - weld distortion forces can be very high - you often meet hopelessly twisted clamps in a FabCo.

Rich S

Thanks Rich. I remember when I was a kid learning auto body - Had to quench the panels with a wet rag so they would go back to where they belonged. I was the rust guy and had to braze that crap. Nasty job. Ok. I will go look for flame straightening.

Thanks, Bob

Hydraulic jacks work if you can figure out how to rig them up safely; so you don't create a giant crossbow that fires if anything slips. No clamp I own was strong enough to straighten salvaged 3" x 8' channel iron but a 4 ton porta-power-type ram easily straightened it well enough to use as sawmill track.

Thank you Richard. I will attack the door on Saturday with a bottle jack and see what I can do.

Thanks Jim. I'll try the bottle jack. I've got a large H-beam showing up tomorrow for my next project so I can probably set it up on that.

Since it's on a potato locker, appearance can't be too important - so you could just live with it. Some fiddling required to get the hinges right, but fiddling is easier than trying to bend a 2-1/2" deep, 36" wide(?), 1/4" skinned box. That's one strong element.

Bob

Yes, the potato locker door has proven itself to be a worthy opponent. The hinge side wasn't welded up so that it was fairly easy to get straight. The 4 hinges look like they are aligned ok.

I have a 20 ton jack and I'll give it another shot this weekend.

Good Call Rich. I applied a little counter-bend with a 22 ton bottle jack and some chain. Heated up some dollar-size spots till it glowed and shined a hose on it. Got it straight in no time. Good lesson to learn. Thanks.

Glad it worked. That's really made my day! I was a bit tentative, seeing as I didn't see myself as having the depth of practical experience to speak with confidence. Rich S