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Sliding "barn style" doors...

6K views 51 replies 16 participants last post by  TAHOE99 
#1 ·
So, in an effort to keep all the kidlet happy, we're partitioning off a section of the basement suite for Kidlet #1 to use as a bedroom... BUT there isn't enough room (due to weird cold air duct placement and jack posts and things like that) for a standard swinging door... Plus LTGal wants to be able to go back to "Open Concept" in this area once (if?) Kidlet #1 ever moves out... So, inspired by my doctor's office, we decided to try to put in sliding "barn style" doors. So, LTGal went to work seeing what she could find... And the cheapest KIT came in at c. $800-900... Crazy! So, being a good DIY-er, she checked the InterWeb, and found THIS:

http://www.epbot.com/2013/03/make-your-own-sliding-barn-door-for.html

So I took today off to go try to find materials for this venture. And I must admit, ONE piece has me stumped! The spacers on the lag bolts, in the picture below,



I just can't find, for love nor money! I thought of things like pipe, and cutting off one inch chunks, but I decided to go with 5/16 lag bolts and I can't find any pipe in that size. Pluming places, no luck... electrical places no luck... Hardware places, no luck... Even Acklands-Grainger had no idea where I could get what I wanted... I DID find THIS website, but surely to goodness I shouldn't have to order something like this from the INTERWEB, when I only need 4 or 6 of them?!?

Thoughts?
 
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#3 ·
The only machinist I know is Ellis.... Hmmmm... Wonder what he'd trade for a nice vintage thread micrometer? :)
 
#13 ·
No sweat Tyson. Give me the specs and I'll spin them out for you...........for the vintage micrometer, of course :howdy:
 
#6 ·
Ya, if its behind the plate, I guess it doesn't matter what diameter of pipe it is (i.e., it doesn't HAVE to be 5/16 pipe). Either way, we MAY have found a more expensive (NOT thousands of dollars) solution that might do it, from our local Acklands-Grainger... Who knew they had a whole "hanging door" section?!?!
 
#7 ·
OK first of all... cool concept! next... Im suprised you cant find a piece of pipe... No black iron pipe at all?? Do you have a shop around that sells steel?? Maybe check with a welding shop. Any city of any size should have one somewere.

If that fails here is what I would do. Being that the roller only rolls on the top, I would make wood blocks to hold it. If it was me, I would leave a little ledge on the bottom to help support the steel, and just drill your hole in it. I think it would still look nice, be cheap, and also offer a more solid support then just a spacer. If you dont get what im talking about I can skech up a picture of what Im thinking.
 
#8 ·
Go to PAL. Buy 2' of 1/4" schedule 40 black iron pipe and a 21/64" drill bit.

Rebore both ends of the pipe with the drill and cut off 1 spacer from each end. Repeat as required.

No bench vise to hold the pipe for drilling? Clamp 2 pieces of wood together and drill a 1/2" hole between them to use as a clamp for the pipe.
 
#12 · (Edited)
Here is the idea I'm thinking of.... View attachment 253790


Sent from the MTF Free App
THAT'S a good idea! We could do those for the end stops by just making them a bit bigger! I was trying to figure out how to do that! Cool....


Well, the drywall company just dropped off all four sheets of drywall that we'll need (its a small wall!), I've got all the 2x4s, now we just need to get my buddy the carpenter/drywaller to come whap the wall together (we thought, rather than having ME approximate carpenter this one, we'd get someone with experience to do it). Then we're onto the doors...
 
#10 ·
they do make slidin door kits for homes... these use a set of rollers.. check at Lowes ..Menards.. etc....any box store lumber yard has them...u can get a plain hollow door & hang it on the rollers
 
#11 ·
Ya, our closest Lowes is 250K away, we don't have Menards, the Home Depot folks weren't able to help us at all... Although now that we've checked online, Whirly, you're right, they DO have sliding door kits... But we can't tell whether they're for closet doors (with a bottom track) or for actual doors (the hardware looks pretty wimpy). Our other issue is that, because we're building the wall UNDER a bulkhead (the main beam that runs the length of the basement, we've closed it in with a bulkhead), we can't hook the hardware to the ceiling (the door would be too short). So we need something that can hang "sideways". I dunno if any of the commercial kits will hang sideways.
 
#15 ·
You could make spacers from 1/8" pipe,that has an I.D. about 3/8",close enough for a 5/16" bolt to pass thru it...valve guides for a chevy small block are about the same I.D. and that long ,maybe an auto machine shop can supply you with some new or used ones for low cost...

I made a sliding door for the "office" in my garage from a section of garage door track and the rollers,and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be to make...used a length of angle iron on the floor and a v-pulley rides on it to guide the bottom of it ,to let it roll smoothly...I wanted a door that didnt need to "swing" because of lack of room,it fit the bill nicely...
 
#16 ·
way out of the way idea.... Wally World here sells lamps for 10 bucks... the pipes on those lamps might work... then you can use the lamp as a hanging fixture. I found a couple of them in a dumpsters when all the kids moved out of the dorms last year (yes, I dig through the dumpsters, only when the kids move out of the dorms in May). I have no floor space so I took the lamps apart and hung them from the ceiling.....

Here is the lamp I am talking about:
http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/mother-...011&startSearch=&fromSearchBox=true&addFacet=
 
#19 ·
Ya, I was THINKING of those lamp pipe/spindle thingies... I think I might have a couple in my scrap drawer as well, that I'll take a look at when I get home tonight... I'm leaning toward just TRYING this DIY thing, even tho we might have found some commercial solutions... The flat stock ran me $11, the 2" sheaves I bought were 7 bux a piece, the bolts were about 5 bux... So I'm not out a whole lotta dinero if this thing is a total bust... AND it might turn into a new angle grinder and cutoff wheel for me... :praying:
 
#20 ·
Valve guides... Never thought of that! Dang it, I went by the engine rebuilder's place like, a dozen times yesterday as I was trucking around trying to scrape together bits!
 
#21 · (Edited)
Sorry Tyson, I was thinking 5/16" and turning it into the decimal for 7/16".

T-H has it right with the 1/8" pipe, but the wall is going to be really thin once opened up to 5/16".

The best size is 1/4" schedule 80 pipe for your job. For that size, you need to get it from a machine shop or an industrial mechanical shop.
 
#22 ·
I've been looking to build a door like this for awhile. Thanks for the link to the DIY door! Should be very helpful.

Lots of good ideas in this thread.
 
#23 ·
Thanks KC! Glad it helped! Keep me posted how yours goes! My drywall goes in today, then after that I have to get rolling on getting the door put together, so hopefully I'll have some updates soon!
 
#24 ·
some good ideas here! I've got a slider on my shop and been trying to figure a good way to seal it tight in the winter to keep the heat in! that butt end wall is the solution for the leading edge!now I've gotta figure out the top and trailing side!I was figuring on squeegee rubber but thought it might be a pita!
 
#28 ·
use a piece of carpet to seal the door..... it should slide & not mark up the wall...
 
#27 ·
Um.... No comment....

(actually, I hadn't really THOUGHT that far ahead. Shhh, don't tell Kidlet #1! And, well, if anyone has any suggestions... I'm open to them!)
 
#31 ·
Oooo! I LIKE those latches! Lemme run that by LTGal, but those look like a contender! Hopefully I can source something like that in town here...
 
#32 ·
The latch should operate from both sides of the door and there should not be a locking device on the inside. Sliding doors are the devil's spawn to open in an emergency if they are locked from the opposite side.
 
#33 ·
Does that latch not operate from both sides? I looked at the drawing and THOUGHT it did? As a household with a four-year-old in it, yes, that IS a concern...

Turns out, however, I should have checked in with LTGal FIRST before I made ANY comments about latches, she and Kidlet #1 have plans already for Tardis-style handles (think "Dr. Who"), some Tardis decals, and the only locking device being possibly a hook and eye on the inside at teenager height, with enough of a gap to fit a nail file (should we need to gain access)... At this point, we're only concerned with securing a teenager space from a marauding 4-year old....
 
#35 ·
Latch on both sides is a must, but if you build the rolling mechanism like the guy in your link, I would imagine you could just lift door up and off in an emergency. I already have some true barn door c channel I may use so that wouldn't be an option for me, I would have to make sure it's accessable from both sides, locked or not.

"out voted by the ladies"....that's how I just got a new puppy :(
 
#36 ·
Well, the wall is done!



Just came up from cleaning at least SOME of the drywall dust up (still more to go, there's ALWAYS more drywall dust) and figured I should post a pic of this before I go hose off all the dust... This'll give you some idea of why we're looking at barn-style doors... Not a lot of space for swing-room, not a lot of space to PUT a door-frame in, and if this is eventually going to be opened up again to be a kitchen (what it is actually SPEC'ed for in our suite) we want the opening to be as big as possible...
 
#39 ·
Thanks, Ellis, but no, I couldn't possibly do mudding that nice. We hired a friend of mine, the same one who did all the 5/8" drywall for us in the main suite four years ago... I THINK I'd be able to put up the board, but I just don't have what it takes to do the taping and mudding...

I used a shopvac with a dust cover under the lid for collecting the drywall dust as I sanded with a special sanding block with a 1-1/4" vacuum port in the end. The regular filter plugs up too fast and lets too much of the abrasive dust go through the motor.

Very little dust escaped.

Check at Sears for the dust cover and just about any hardware store for the sanding block and pads.

Did you think of using 2 sets of bifold doors?
For this small of an area, I'm just using my "second" shop vac, a small, relatively cheap one, and I'm not worrying too much about saving it... Its one of those "not standard" sizes (I tried ordering standard filters for it at one point, I wound up having to have its filters shipped from Pennsylvania, which is where the only depot that imports them is). I've so far been using just an old towel with the shop vac trailing closely behind to gather up the dust, I'll see about one of those sanding blocks (I'm assuming they're the sponge blocks... ).

We thought about bi-fold doors, but the general flimsiness, in conjunction with their known penchant for pinchy-ness (particularly for small fingers) mitigated against them....
 
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