bi-fold doors

I plan on building some glazed bi-fold doors for the back of my place. It would be about six grand to have them made up so I thought I'd save a bit of money since I've got time on my hands. The opening is 4.610 wide and 2.475 high and I'm planning on having three doors folding each way, flat against the outside wall so they don't stick out perpendicular and get in the way like bi-folds usually do.
Even just the track and hinge set up costs $660, but I've found a pair of heavy duty carriages in the garage that I pulled off an old sliding door ages ago, and I've sourced and ordered a piece of lipped channel from Lysaghts that should be the perfect dimensions. I've just got my fingers crossed, that at 2.5mm thick it's strong enough to carry the weight of the doors. With a little bit of modification the carriages should work like a charm. ;)
Cedar's a killer on the hip pocket, so I plan on making them out of K.D. Hwd. Each leaf would be 770mm X 2485mm which is pretty big so I plan on using 240X45 for the bottom rail with double through tenons, and 140X45 top rail with a single through tenon, and 90X45 side rails. I'll have to look into what sort opf glue to use. Perhaps some sort of waterproof epoxy resin type glue. I plan on ripping the glazing rebate to dimensions that would suit using the off cut as glazing bead.
Hinges are a killer as well with those nifty non-mortise aluminium jobbies coming in at almost eight bucks a pop, :eek: so I'm just going to use cheap 4" Z.P. jobs but I'll put four on each door so she'll be right. ;) The extra hinge will help stop the doors from going out of wind anyway. :D. I'm not going to worry about rebating between the doors, just allowing a 4mm gap and using a double row of adhesive mohair, or even running a saw cut and getting insert mohair strips.
Glazing will be the dearest part but I reckon the whole job will end up costing less than a couple of grand plus my time.
I realize that the doors won't exactly be smooth in their operation since I plan on not installing any bottom guide track, and with the doors folding flat against the outside wall, they will be inclined to chatter and jam when you initially attempt to close them, but if you're careful and you know exactly where to apply pressure then they should work alright in theory. I've got my fingers crossed anyway.
I plan on just using a power saw, a drill and a chisel to do the mortise and tenons, but it will be the first time I've made doors, so any thoughts, tips or suggestions?

[quote;371928]
I realize that the doors won't exactly be smooth in their operation since I plan on not installing any bottom guide track, and with the doors folding flat against the outside wall, they will be inclined to chatter and jam when you initially attempt to close them, but if you're careful and you know exactly where to apply pressure then they should work alright in theory. I've got my fingers crossed anyway[/quote]
I would really consider a bottom track, there's going to be a lot of weight hanging from the top channel, even when shut. When opened, without support from the bottom, the doors will not stay upright/plumb.

Just wondering how you're going to have the doors running on a top track and folding flat against the wall? Not really possible without having some curves on the end of your top track, as far as I can figure out. Also, do you know what species your KD hardwood will be and how stable it is? Some timbers will continue to move with atmospheric changes, even years after being dried. Not good when used for joinery, especially if containing glass.

Mick

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Originally Posted by rowie

I would really consider a bottom track, there's going to be a lot of weight hanging from the top channel, even when shut. When opened, without support from the bottom, the doors will not stay upright/plumb.

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When shut the flush bolts will hold the doors in position, besides there is no tendency for the doors to wind. The track width is 63mm and the door thickness is 45mm so the centre of the door will be 4mm (clearance) + 22.5mm from the face of the jamb, = 26.5mm total. The track will be hard against the jamb in the closed position so the centre of the track will be 31.5mm from the face of the jamb. This means that I'll have to offset the carriage by only 5mm from the centreline of the door which is 'nothing' really. There should be no tendency for the doors to wind.
In the open position it is a different matter. the weight of the opening leaf (third leaf) will tend to twist the second leaf inwards at the bottom towards the first leaf (jamb leaf) but by careful placement of the track, I can ensure that there is only minimal clearance between the leaves when open (say 4mm). The second leaf will rest against the first leaf at the bottom, and have minimal clearance at the top.
I don't think that this minimal amount of wind will affect anything.

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Just wondering how you're going to have the doors running on a top track and folding flat against the wall?

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I plan to install the track in two segments, one for each set of three doors. As I've stated in the post above, the track will be hard against the jamb at the closed position. It will then travel at an angle so that when the carriage reaches the fully open position, the centre of the track will be:- 45mm (jamb rebate depth) plus 10mm (first leaf clearance) plus 45mm (first leaf thickness) plus 4mm (second leaf clearance) plus 22.5mm (half of second leaf) plus 5mm (track offset from door centreline) which gives a total of 131.5mm from the face of the rebate in the open position. In the closed position it will be 31.5mm from the face of the rebate.
The doors should travel to the open position quite easily, however closing them is another matter. When closing them initially, the doors have to swing a large distance in relation to the distance that the carriage moves along the track. This would tend to make the carriage chatter and jam, however if you're careful, and you know where to apply pressure, then they should work allright in theory anyway.
This is one reason that I don't want to install a guide track at the bottom. Besides being ugly to start with, it would have to be at an angle that corresponds with the top track, making it doubly ugly.
I have polished floorboards on the inside, then a 20mm step down to decking boards. The doors will close hard against a mohair strip on the edge of the internal floorboards.

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Also, do you know what species your KD hardwood will be and how stable it is? Some timbers will continue to move with atmospheric changes, even years after being dried. Not good when used for joinery, especially if containing glass.

Mick

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I don't know what species it is, and yes this is a concern. They will be closed for most of the time though so most of them will be restrained at the top and bottom. Of course the two central leaves will only have a single lock in the middle so they will be free to twist and wind, and I may have to install bolts on the top and bottom.
I'm sourcing the timber from Barrenjoey Timbers:-
240X45 @ $34.25/metre
140X45 @ $14.95/metre
90X45 @ $8.65/metre
If anyone knows of anywhere cheaper in Sydney let me know.:)

Another concern is sagging in the head. I've installed a 300X65 Hyspan LVL which has already sagged 5mm even before the ceiling has been gyprocked. Once the weight of the ceiling and these big hardwood doors goes on it I expect it to sag a bit more. There's 20mm adjustment in the carriages but it's no good having the track travel uphill too much because of head sag, so I'll install the track with 20mm packers which will give me something to play with if I have to adjust the track up to make it level.;)

Pawnhead,
still not sure about the "flat against the wall" bit. Does the opening run into a wall at 90deg at both ends? If so, yes, the doors will fold flat against the wall. If the opening is bounded either end by a wall that's parrallel to the opening (which is what I assumed) then there's no way that the doors will fold flat.

If the former, then there's no need to run your track at an angle, if the latter, well the geometry just won't let you do it.

Mick

Hi Pawnhead,
Sounds like a big job cutting all those M&T's in hardwood by hand!
Have you thought about WRC instead of red (or white) cedar...I don't know the price comparisons, but its light, chisels well, good for doors and handles the weather OK. For dressed stuff, you're looking at: 140x38 $22.39/m and 92x32 $14.93/m, & you may be able to get custom sizes.

Good luck with it.

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

If the opening is bounded either end by a wall that's parrallel to the opening (which is what I assumed) then there's no way that the doors will fold flat.

If the former, then there's no need to run your track at an angle, if the latter, well the geometry just won't let you do it.

Mick

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Yes, it's the latter, and I beg to differ. I don't think there's anything in the geometry that would prevent their operation in theory, however as I've said, you'd have to be very careful when initially closing them. If I put even more of an angle in the track (say an extra 50mm, making it 181.5mm from the rebate face), then it would make the closing operation smoother, however it also means that the doors wouldn't stack as flat against the wall, and I'd loose the support of having the second leaf leaning against the first leaf in the fully opened position. This would tend to stress the second leaf into a winding position because of the fact that it is supporting the weight of the third leaf. I could overcome this by drilling an extra hole in the outside decking for the flush bolt in the second leaf, so I could bolt the door in the open position. This would eliminate any torsional stress, but I'll try setting it up with tight tolerences first and see how difficult they are to operate.

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Originally Posted by Andy Mac

Hi Pawnhead,
Sounds like a big job cutting all those M&T's in hardwood by hand!

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You're not wrong there, but if I can save four grand then it will be worth it. As I've said, I've got time on my hands.

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Originally Posted by Andy Mac

Have you thought about WRC instead of red (or white) cedar...I don't know the price comparisons, but its light, chisels well, good for doors and handles the weather OK. For dressed stuff, you're looking at: 140x38 $22.39/m and 92x32 $14.93/m, & you may be able to get custom sizes.

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I don't know about cedar chiselling well. It's too soft and tends to bend and fracture when you're chiseling across the grain regardless of how sharp your chisel is. It also tends to split and peel when going with the grain. I reckon that hardwood is easier to get an acurate finish when you're doing everything by hand (I'm doing the motises with a drill/spadebit and a chisel, and I'll do the tenons just by setting the depth on my power saw and making multiple cuts, tidying up with a chisel). Besides, I don't think cedar is as durable and it dents easily. I've got a dog that might be scratching on the styles when he's locked outside and if he does, then it won't take long to do some serious damage to a cedar door.
On top of this there's the cost. Cedar is another 50% on top of Hwd, so that's an extra $300 that I'll save. :D My main concern is that the stuff might move around and start twisting all over the place, but I've got my fingers crossed that once it's got lammy glass siliconed in, with four hinges on each leaf, it should be pretty stable. They'd better not send me a load of twisted rubbish to start with though.

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Originally Posted by Andy Mac

Good luck with it.

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Thanks for that. ;) I should be getting the track tommorrow and I'll order the timber tommorrow as well so hopefully in a month or so I'll be able to post up some piccys of a fully operational bi-fold set up that folds flat against the outside wall. I've never seen one before, so it may be a world's first.
On the other hand, if journeyman Mick is right, then I could be eating my words and reconfiguring the set up in a more conventional way. :o

Pawnhead,
have you ever fitted any bi-folds? I have never seen any bifold mechanism that allows the doors to fold back against the walls. The door nearest the jamb is hinged or pivotted and the next door is hinged off it and suspended via a carriage to the top rail. As the doors open fully they touch and the carriage will prevent the doors opeining much more than 90 degrees. I'd be very interested to see a set up that allows the doors to open flat against the walls without utilising curved rails or something very tricky.

Mick

With no bottom track, as soon as they pivot open, they'll rock out of balance and jam against the floor.

Pick up an envelope and hold it vertically by one corner and you'll see what I mean. The only way to prevent this is to centre pivot, which means you have to build with a super high level of accuracy.

You can make them work of course, but it would be easier just to do away with the sliding mechanisms altogether and just barrel bolt panels into place and carry them away when you want them open!

Commercial bifolds have adjustments on the top AND bottom tracks to allow for the "drop", and they are by no means "set and forget".

I hope you have one big sucker of a piece of steel to hang all this from!

Cheers,

P:cool:

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Pawnhead,
have you ever fitted any bi-folds?

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Yes, I've fitted a couple of sets before. I've been a chippy for 25 years, so I'm not exactly wet behind the ears. ;)

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

I have never seen any bifold mechanism that allows the doors to fold back against the walls.

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Neither have I.

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

The door nearest the jamb is hinged or pivotted and the next door is hinged off it and suspended via a carriage to the top rail. As the doors open fully they touch and the carriage will prevent the doors opeining much more than 90 degrees.

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By having the track on an angle I can run it past the edge of the opening.
I've made an illustration in MS paint so you can see what I mean. It's a plan view.
http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/743/untitled01qq4.jpg

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

I'd be very interested to see a set up that allows the doors to open flat against the walls without utilising curved rails or something very tricky.

Mick

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Hopefully I'll be able to show you. :)

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Originally Posted by bitingmidge

With no bottom track, as soon as they pivot open, they'll rock out of balance and jam against the floor.

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Yes, I know what you're talking about. With a 20mm stepdown I can afford to leave up to 10mm clearance from the floor, but you'll probably still have to give some support to the doors as you operate them. It's only the third leaf that will tend to pivot and scrape the floor at it's outside edge. If you give the door a bit of support by lifting the door handle as you open them then they should work allright. I can imagine that they won't be the easiest doors to operate, but if you know where to apply pressure, then they should work.

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Originally Posted by bitingmidge

The only way to prevent this is to centre pivot, which means you have to build with a super high level of accuracy.

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A central pivot won't work. The doors have to close against a 20mm step down for weatherproofing. With a central pivoting system, half of the door would end up inside, besides they still won't fold flat against the wall.

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Originally Posted by bitingmidge

You can make them work of course, but it would be easier just to do away with the sliding mechanisms altogether and just barrel bolt panels into place and carry them away when you want them open!

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Get real!

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Originally Posted by bitingmidge

Commercial bifolds have adjustments on the top AND bottom tracks to allow for the "drop", and they are by no means "set and forget".

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Bi-folds are supported entirely by the top carriage. I realise that being timber, they'll need the occasional 'tune-up' adjustment of hinges, track height, etc.

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Originally Posted by bitingmidge

I hope you have one big sucker of a piece of steel to hang all this from!

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I've installed a 300X63 Hyspan, but when I designed it, I didn't make any allowance for the weight of the doors so it's probably just a bit overspanned. As I mentioned, it's already sagged 5mm and I expect it to sag a bit more with the weight of the gyprock ceiling and the doors so I'll pack the track 20mm to give me some room for vertical adjustment. The carriages themselves have 20mm vertical adjustment, but I wouldn't want to use it all if the track goes 20mm out of level. That would lead to all sorts of twisting problems when operating them. The track has to be kept level.

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Originally Posted by bitingmidge

Cheers,
P:cool:

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Cheers, and thanks for the advice, but no one has talked me out of it yet so I'll order the timber now and see what happens. I like the idea of them folding flat against the wall, out of the way, and I don't want an ugly bottom track that would have to follow the same angle as the top track. It's not a commercial idea, because I know they won't be easy to operate, but the worst case is that I might have to reconfigure them conventionally with a bottom guide, but it's only a bit of my time that will be wasted.

Pawnhead,
okay, I can see what you mean to do, I'm just not 100% convinced that the geometry will work when the doors are travelling through the 90 to 180 degree range. I've got a sneaking suspicion that somewhere there might be a sticking point. If you've got a few hollow core doors hanging around off a job it might be wothwhile doing a dummy run. Oh, and by the way, some commercial bifolds do have a bottom track, not for support, but for alignment (the ones I fitted anyway)

Mick

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Pawnhead,
okay, I can see what you mean to do, I'm just not 100% convinced that the geometry will work when the doors are travelling through the 90 to 180 degree range.

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Yeh, at the 180 degree position it will be inclined to jam in the track when closing.

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

If you've got a few hollow core doors hanging around off a job it might be wothwhile doing a dummy run.

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If it doesn't work then it's not a huge deal to just move the track in and install a bottom guide track, and if this track system I'm putting together doesn't work then I'll just have to shell out another $660 to centaur and get the proper goods. Here is the timber I'm going to use anyway:- http://www.barrenjoeytimber.com.au/price.cfm?CatID=11 F27 North Coast hardwood, whatever that might be. It looks alright in the photo, It just better be nice and straight when it gets here.:cool:

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick
Pawnhead,
have you ever fitted any bi-folds?

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Originally Posted by pawnhead

Yes, I've fitted a couple of sets before. I've been a chippy for 25 years, so I'm not exactly wet behind the ears. ;).........

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Sorry about that, :o I presumed it was someone attempting the unknown or untried because they didn't know better, rather than someone whose skill and experience have led them to try something a bit different.

Mick (who's been known to do things that aren't supposed to be possible)

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Sorry about that, :o I presumed it was someone attempting the unknown or untried because they didn't know better, rather than someone whose skill and experience have led them to try something a bit different.

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if he can get them to work, he will become a millionaire:rolleyes: the first bi-folds to defy gravity:p seriously tho, good luck;)

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Sorry about that, :o I presumed it was someone attempting the unknown or untried because they didn't know better, rather than someone whose skill and experience have led them to try something a bit different.

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Nothing to be sorry about. It might well be that I should know better.

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Mick (who's been known to do things that aren't supposed to be possible)

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John (who's trying to do something that's not supposed to be possible).

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Originally Posted by rowie

if he can get them to work, he will become a millionaire:rolleyes: the first bi-folds to defy gravity:p

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Another disbeliever.:p
I don't think there's a million bucks in it but they won't have to defy gravity.

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Originally Posted by rowie

seriously tho, good luck;)

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Thanks, I might need it.
Timber gets here on Monday and I should have the track by Tuesday, so I'll see if it works with the old carriages that I've got. Fingers crossed. :)

Pawnhead,
just an idea, before you commit yourself fully (and build your doors to their required sizes) you may want to try this:
Make a mock up of the geometry, a stick of, say 42 x 19 cut to length to represent each door and the whole lot hinged together to mimic the finished product. Set up your "top track" in the form of maybe a couple of sticks of pine to take a bit of dowel that's been fixed to the top of your "doors" so as to mimic the rail and carriages. Then try opening and closing the resultant model. It should only take a hour or so to knock up and may save you a lot of mucking around. If it works, great! If it doesn't, well it'll save you cutting your doors down and rehanging the top track for a start and will save a lot of swearing and frustration.;) Please let us know how it goes.

Mick

Yeah for sure, let us know how it works - unfortunately I'm in the non-believers box, it looks like it will work on paper, but my thoughts are along the lines of it will be frustrating to try and open and close them

Prove me wrong and then post instructions how to do it, 'cause I won't to do the same, but can't figure it out

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

If it doesn't, well it'll save you cutting your doors down and rehanging the top track for a start and will save a lot of swearing and frustration.;) Please let us know how it goes.

Mick

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The doors will be the same dimensions regardless of how I configure them. ;)

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Originally Posted by Sigidi

Yeah for sure, let us know how it works - unfortunately I'm in the non-believers box, it looks like it will work on paper, but my thoughts are along the lines of it will be frustrating to try and open and close them

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Yeh, I agree that they'll probably be frustrating to close from the fully open position, and without the bottom track they won't exactly glide, but I can put up with that if they can be operated with care.

I've done all the gyprocking after taking the sag out of the ceiling and putting a 5mm pre-camber in the head of the opening. Some progress piccys of the renos if anyone is interested. They're pretty boring though:-
Here's half of the opening from inside. You can see that I'm going to make a casement window on each side of the opening. I've just built the new deck but it's a bit messy from plastering. I made the fake sandstone barbie in the background from sand moulds :-
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep15205.jpg
I went through three $40 9" diamond blades cutting this sandstone and capping. There's about ten lineal metres of it:-
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep15214.jpg
The floor was out of level and I want to get it perfect for the doors without putting a patch in the threshold, so I'm lifting the old floor and re-laying it after I've torn up the rotten floor underneath:-
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep15204.jpg
I've got to build a bulkhead outside here to carry the track which will be mounted outside the opening:-
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep15207.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep15208.jpg
Looking from the yard. That tree is about an inch away from the gutter and it's a pain in the *rse dropping leaves all over my new laserlite and clogging my gutters. I'm going to have a go at cutting it down, but it's pretty scary up there:-
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep15216.jpg
The timber arrived last week. It's a bit gnarly and it's not the straightest. :mad: There's up to a 5mm bow in the length of some of the stiles. I'll have to hold them straight until their glazed and hung. I've knocked up my first door but I haven't glued it yet:-
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep24226.jpg
The M&Ts are a bit rough. I made up a jig for my router to do the mortises and I just used a power saw and a chisel on the tenons:- http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep24230.jpg
The offcut I ripped from the glazing rebate will make the glazing bead:-
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep24234.jpg
They stuffed up and sent the wrong track to my supplier so it will be a week before I get the track. I hope it will carry the weight because these doors are going to be heavy. I might wedge them when they're open to take the weight off my sagging Hyspan. :D Here's one of the old carriages I found. I've just got to cut one end of the mounting plate and weld it at 90 degrees so it goes down the edge of the door. I don't trust just topfixing it:-
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Sep24232.jpg

John

Better you than me. That floor looks like a nightmare, sagging hyspan ..why do we do it to ourselves.
Anyway you stone wall looks good.
Cheers,

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Originally Posted by pawnhead

The doors will be the same dimensions regardless of how I configure them...............

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John,
if it doesn't work and you rehang your toptrack to be square in the opening rather than at the slight angle you show, then this will shorten it slightly. Probably just enough that you'll need to trim each door a bit I'm guessing. (I've probably missed something here:rolleyes: )

Mick

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Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

John,
if it doesn't work and you rehang your toptrack to be square in the opening rather than at the slight angle you show, then this will shorten it slightly. Probably just enough that you'll need to trim each door a bit I'm guessing. (I've probably missed something here:rolleyes: )

Mick

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I'll keep the doors in the same closed position as planned, i.e. outside the opening, overlapping it by 12mm on each side. This gives a nice clean look from the inside. The set reveals return into the doors with no timber reveal and no architraves. There's so much timber with the polished floorboards/decking/pergola and doors that I think it's a bit of overkill putting timber reveals and architraves on. If I have to hang them conventially, I'll just have to move the track in parallel on the bulkhead I'm constructing.

edit:- Or I could always just chop the gyprock off the reveals which gives me another 12mm on each side of the opening anyway. 10mm gyprock + 2mm ex angle.

Well that was a couple of months ago, so Pawnhead, how's it going with your bifold doors??:) Any progress to show us?

Cheers,

I’ve bee pretty busy recently and I’d like to have had more time for my doors, but don't worry, I’m still hoping to have them done by Xmas so I can post up some sexy pics for you to drool over. :D

Whilst you’re waiting you can watch some rednecks power tool drag racing.

If it doesn't work, you can make them a series of french doors. I'm not sure why these bifolds are all the rage - they just seem to let flies and mosquitoes in. You can at least get concealed fly screens for smaller openings (ones that are concealed when they roll up like garage roll-a-doors)

French doors could be opened up almost as much as bifolds (or is that pentafolds) and they are going to be more robust and not sag.

Well I’ve finished the doors, and I was going to wait to post until my sparky to came to hook up my lights, but he’s busy until the end of January :~ so I’ll just post now. I could hook them up myself, but I’ve known him since I was 8yrs old and he’s doing it for a slab of beer so I suppose I can’t complain. I screwed in the outside lights so I could see what they’ll look like anyway. I’ve gone a bit overboard with lots of pics, and some of them are a bit warped and distorted because of my camera, (not because the doors are crooked, even though they are :U ).
Outside
Outside right
Outside left
Inside
With the sashes at 100mm narrower than the doors, the styles line up perfectly when the doors are open and you can still see out of the window through four panes of 6mm lammy.

Construction Details : -
The window sashes are casement opening, swung on hinges instead of casement stays to save money. There’s a cabin hook to hold it in the fully open, folded back position. The second eyelet in the sash holds the sash in a perpendicular position, and the eyelet in the sill is to store the cabin hook parallel to the grain of timber when not in use. It’s easy to see, and to grab from the inside that way, and it looks neater from the outside. You can see the slots that I’ve cut to accommodate the hooks when closing the window. The drawback is that they may rattle in the wind, but I can always attach a wind chime and pretend I’m listening to a band. :) The sill is tapered at about 10 degrees for weather, and the bottom of the window is bevelled to fit. There's a drip groove under the sill. The opposite sash has just one setting at about 60 degrees so it allows the awning window behind to open fully. When the awning window is open I can’t fold the doors back against the wall, but I can reach inside the window from outside and wind it closed enough to operate the doors :U. They are latched by a teardrop handle. There’s no glazing in this sash because I’m still trying to coax it straight before I glaze it. Some of the timber I got was pretty warped and bent but I used the worst doors against the jamb where it would hold them straight with the four hinges, and I tried to pair up opposite bows so the doors would work against each other giving a straight finish. I couldn’t find two straight ones for the middle, so I paired up two with a 5mm outward bow in the middle, and when they’re closed they line up with each other perfectly flush and you wouldn’t realise that they are so bowed.
The door handles are cheap $20 jobs from the local Big W. When you open and clip back the first loose leaf, you can see that I couldn’t be bothered buying a rebate kit and I just used a block of wood behind the latch instead. You can also see that it is held back by a ‘cheap’ 80c eyelet cabin hook, that I prefer to call a ‘minimalist look with concealed fixings’ :). No ugly screw plates ;)
In this pic you can see that I had to drill the hole for the lock right through to the back of the glazing rebate, but it will be covered by the glazing bead that I ripped out of the rebate in the first place.
The fixed leaf is held by flushbolts, top and bottom, but if I stand on my tip toes I still can’t quite reach the top one. I might try to source a longer one; otherwise I might just get a long barrel bolt and grind down the handle bolt so it fits concealed in the rebate, the same as a flush bolt. You can notice that I haven’t mortised the flush bolt all the way in to the rebate because I didn’t want to destroy the integrity of the M&T joint, being a narrow rebated style at only 90mm wide, so I bogged up the top of the flushbolt and stuck the weather-strip over it. There’s a rebate in the edge strip of the opening leaf that clears it. From the outside you can notice the edge strip on the opening leaf, and the rebate in the fixed leaf.
In this shot you can’t really see it, but I’ve left as much meat as possible on the latch rebate, to the extent of chipping a narrow slot for the striker plate to slide into rather than grinding down the back of the striker. It all gets covered by the weather strip anyway (ugly but practical). In that shot you’ll also notice that the dummy handle just overlaps the striker plate, and it sits proud of the door by almost 1mm. That’s because I removed the guts of the handle but it still protrudes and I didn’t want to drill a whole in the door for it., so it’s just held by the two through bolts. The gap isn’t really noticeable unless you’re looking for it anyway.

After opening the first leaf on each set, you’ve got a flush bolt at the bottom restraining the next door. You can notice that the flush bolt is 3mm longer than I’d have liked, so I had to nick a bit out of the hinge with a hacksaw. The dogleg is hidden by the weatherseal (as my old man always said. “There’s no problems, only solutions”) The track carriage restrains the top. In the middle of the door, there’s a pocket for a cogged key. To remove the key you press on the head. The mortise in the door is smaller than the head of the key so it won’t fall out. It sits in a groove, and inserts on an angle and drops into place. If I’d had a narrower router bit I could have made the stem a tighter fit.
The key inserts into a 6mm hole in the top and bottom of the same, leaf and engages with a mortised security bolt. It’s supplied with an oval escutcheon plate that I chose not to fit (the hole could pass for a small knot in the door if you weren’t looking for it). I ground the tip of each mortise bolt, and flush bolt, on a rounded splay so it will engage even if the door is not tight against the opening. It draws the door toward the opening as it engages fully. When the doors are closed, there’s no furniture or bolts to see except for the door and window latches, and the edges of the hinges. A nice clean look for mine.

Character limit reached. To be continued.

After disengaging the mortise bolts (always anti- clockwise to disengage, if fitted properly), they glide right back flat against the outside wall.
No big stack of doors blocking up the opening and taking up valuable deck space for me :D. Although you can feel the weight of the doors (I’m glad I haven’t had to lift them since they’ve been glazed), a child could operate them with a pinky finger if they could reach the handle. In fact, if you give the handle a sharp but firm pull for about six inches, then let go, they will glide open or closed all the way, on their own. They’re held up by ‘skyhooks carried by gossamer wings’ :hahaha:
But seriously, If you remove the bulkhead eaves, you can see the guts of the matter and what’s holding it all up. There’s two screws in each of the four eaves sheets just to stop them sliding around, and this is the left side and this is the right. At the top you can just make out the edge of the tin where it overlaps the laserlite. You can see the 300 X 65mm Hyspan in the background, installed hard up against the roofing for maximum height, and plaster set across the bottom and part way up the face. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the Hyspan has sagged 5mm since being under roof load, but that is to be expected, and is within tolerance for this timber beam. However I thought that I’d better cater for any future sagging once the weight of these hardwood doors are on it, so I planed the ceiling joists straight to a stringline, and I packed each side of the head down 10mm which gives me a 5mm upward precamber in the head, so if it sags another 5mm then the head will be straight. The 5mm taper between head and ceiling isn’t noticeable at all. Attached to the beam you can see the pergola rafters notched into boots to cater for the five degree pitch. Then you can see the lump of 6x3 track support that I dug up out of the garage. Below that I’ve screwed a 20mm packer that can be removed and planed down if the beam sags and I need to adjust the track upwards. Below that the track is screwed through the lot, with twin screws at about 200mm centres. The track is just a piece of lipped channel from Lysaghts. It was 2mm wider than I’d have liked for the carriage that I had, so I belted it closed with a lump hammer. The carriage is a simple set up and I’m sure you could make one from ‘off the shelf’ gear but I found my pair in the garage. Below that you can see a piece of merbau decking, ripped down to 45mm, and screwed through the edge/through the hardiflex, and into the beam forming a timber door head. Below that there is a 20mm rebate to the underside of the head with plaster set ex angle. You can also see the droppers I’ve installed for fixing the eaves.
Looking the other way inside the bulkhead, you can see how I’ve fixed the mini fascia board with pocket screws from behind. It’s just a piece of decking rebated into the 140X45 trimmer 10X20mm, and notched into the underside of the rafters (they’re underspanned anyway and the notch is near the support). You can see the groove I ripped in it for the eaves lining.
With the eaves installed it’s a very clean look. In this shot you can see the rebated groove in the head. The rebate is to accommodate the locking nut on the carriage. You can see the nut in this shot. I cut one end off the mounting plate and took it to a welder to weld at 90 degrees so I could mortise it into the edge of the door, screw it in, bog over it then stain it so it blends into the timber. It gives more strength than just top fixing and it’s hardly noticeable. He wasn’t going to charge me for the two welds but I slipped him a tenner for a couple of beers. At the time I was considering putting an offset on the pivoting point to make it in line with the hinge point. Then the slot in the eaves wouldn’t’ intrude in the timber head. It would be contained entirely in the eaves, but I think it looks trickier with the rebated slot so I’m glad I didn’t. That last shot also shows up the dodgy M&Ts with a bit of bog thrown in. I knocked up a jig for the router to do the mortises, but I just used a home made square and a power saw to do the tenons freehand, and a chisel to round them off by eye. When gluing the doors, I didn’t have a pipe clamp, so I just made up some timber braces with wedges and whacked in spreaders where necessary. I haven’t even got a bench so I just made them up on the floor.
I think that they actually glide more easily without the bottom guide track, but there is a couple of ‘sort of’ disadvantages that I was expecting. Firstly, you can’t swing the loose leaf if the bifold section is in use or it scrapes the deck. I was expecting that but there’s no reason to swing it then anyway so it’s no disadvantage. You just have to clip the door back and use the handle to operate the bifold. Secondly, the doors don’t hang perfectly straight when unrestrained (If they were aluminium they might, and I was considering making them out of aluminium but timber was cheaper). The right hand side rubs against the aluminium angle just before the end of its travel, but that’s not a problem. It slides easily, and it just leaves a small black mark at the bottom of the door. The left hand side has the opposite problem. It hangs proud of the angle and I was considering fittinging a handle to the bottom hinges, but it’s not hard to just pull the door with your fingers on the edge of the sill. Perhaps just a small finger pull on the bottom of the hinge would be the go. Hmmm.

This is the effect that I want to achieve with the stained cypress flooring. Just a shadowline that’s been stained inside the shadow to blend in with the floor. I realise that I should allow something for expansion, so I might put a cork strip in, or if it’s too expensive, a PVC casing bead, stained up should do the trick. I’ve got shadowline around the ceiling giving the effect of a floating ceiling. On the floor it will look like floating walls held up by skyhooks.

That’s about it for the doors, but I’ve got a little bit more to add on the rest of the renos if anyone has bothered to read this far and you’re still awake and interested. I’ll post again a bit later.

Fantastic job and a well written description.

A video of you opening and closing the doors would be great I reckon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by djstimber

Fantastic job and a well written description.

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Thanks for that, but they’re really not all that good compared to the quality work that’s posted here. The joinery is OK, having tested each M&T joint dry before glueing, but the sanding is a bit wavy, having been done by hand with a belt sander. A big table sander would be the go. I didn’t bother using a straight edge to get them perfect.
The lacquer/stain and polyurethane job is a bit rough. I suppose I could have done better if I’d sanded right down with a fine grit, and sanded between coats, but I’m not that fussy, and at least they’re nice and shiny, if not a glassy and mirror like finish that I usually see on these forums.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by djstimber

A video of you opening and closing the doors would be great I reckon

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Yeh, I don’t have a video camera, so you’ll just have to take my word that they glide (both opening and closing) effortlessly using just one hand on the door handle. I actually expected them to chatter and jam which is why I left a 40mm gap instead of setting up the track so the doors are tight against each other in the open position. I figured it would put less sideways leverage on the carriage, and they can only stack as close as the protruding door handle allows anyway. I can assure you that they don't chatter or jam up at all, and I probably could have closed up that gap and made the bulkhead a bit narrower if I'd bothered to move the track in at the time.

Here’s a bit more I’ll add about the rest of the works in the area : -
In this shot you can see that the old floor doesn’t even reach the wall. That’s because I installed the new beam outside the old wall to grab a bit more floor space and to save demolishing the old wall until I was ready to install the new doors. The beam sits on a couple of 100X100mm hardwood posts bolted, and fixed with hoop iron down to new brick foundations extending down to rock. I was thinking about just staining the post to match the doors, but I decided to go with gyprock. There's too much timber to look at already.The floor has been laid on top of a rotten old floor, and it’s very spongy, so I decided to rip the whole thing up and re lay it.

The roof was originally a foot lower where the beam is, but I jacked it up with an acrow prop, one rafter at a time, a couple of inches at a time, then booted them to the new beam after I installed it. It gives me more headroom for higher doors (they’re 2.5m high) and the pitch is now on the minimum 5 degrees. This gives me 2.4 headroom under the rafters at the pergola beam, whilst maintaining the same ceiling line from inside to out (I'm going to relocate that stink pipe on the wall in the background. It's a bit of a job, but that ugly vent-pipe is annoying me more and more every day).

In that last shot you'll see that I’ve kept the pergola beam up flush with the top of the rafters for more headroom, and I housed the rafters in 12mm X 2/3 their depth on the inside, and the 600mm overhang is just butted to the beam and screwed from the other side. Using a 3” nail, driven on an angle, I stretched a piece of hoop iron tight along the top of the overhang, extending up the top of the rafter. The overhang is as solid as a rock and carries my weight with no deflection.

Here you can see the guttering set up at the end of the pergola, allowing for the awning window to open fully (the roof has a dogleg at the bottom around the window, which determined the position of the first rafter). At the bottom of the window I've attached a piece of timber with a bit of alcor aluminium (on a fall) inside it. It's sealed at the other end and it directs any water running down the window onto the garden bed instead of dripping on the deck. I'm going to scrape back and stain that window eventually. In the background you can see the down pipe going on an angle. I’ve stained it from this side to match the timber, and from the other side I covered it with a dummy post and ‘brace’ that can be lifted off after undoing a screw at the top, so I can replace the down pipe if I ever need to (I'll have to glue a couple of bolt heads to the beam to make the 'post' look more authentic ;) ). The beam isn’t carried by this dummy post. I stripped the cladding, installed a stud inside the wall and extended the beam into the wall sitting on the stud, then replaced the cladding again.

My fish pond/water feature/waterfall/creek is going here behind the retaining wall I built out of bush rock. I hand mixed about a half a cube of concrete and after forming up and throwing an old aluminum handrail in for reinforcement, I poured it behind the dry jointed wall, then I cut the capping and bedded it down on top. I used almost three cheap 9” diamond blades but it was still half the price of buying sawn capping. Three of them are made of cement with a bit of oxide and you can’t really notice it unless you look closely for them. To the right you can see the two steps leading up to the garden, and I scored some sandstone treads off a landscaper mate for a slab of beer. Unfortunately, at just a metre, they’re a bit short for the width I’ve got being 1200, but I’ve got three slabs so I’ll join the top in the middle, and put a 600mm piece in the middle of the bottom with 300mm pieces either side. It should look alright with a pencil round on the stone.

My Barbie is looking better after I mucked around with a bit of oxide painting striations in my ‘faux sandstone’. As soon as I find a feather I’ll muck around and try to get finer striations for a more authentic look. It doesn’t hose out, but I suppose it may fade with time. I accidentaly left a piece of hardwood on the top, and you can see the stain next to my pipe. I suppose it gives it that 'old worn' look, so I'm not too peed off with myself. The sandstone tiles are made of orange brickies sand and off white cement, and they're only 10mm thick at the edges. They were a nice light orange colour originally but they've faded a bit. I made a vee shaped mould for the corner blocks, and packed the mould with brickie’s sand, pressed in with a stone to get the rough bull profile. I reinforced the corner blocks with chicken wire. I intend to make more, and clad the brick foundations out the front of the house with my ‘faux sandstone’ up to floor level. There will be a gas barbie in the middle with a thick slab of timber on either side as a bench top level with the cook top. Probably just some sleepers screwed together, dressed and stained to match all the rest of the pine, overhanging in line with the bull on the ‘stone’.

One last thing I’ll show off is my sexy flowerbox. And here’s me (the reflection in the doors taking a picture).:harhar:

edit : - I'm interested in how much the doors cost me all up, so I'll write up an account soon and post it up.

Great job John,
That should silence the doubting Thomases!

gday pawnhead

nearing completion of our deck, discussions have returned to the original driving force behind it all - getting more usable space in the house - and so the back room/kitchen (where the sliding door is) has copped a back-door blitz style refurb & now we are looking to gain better access to the deck proper.

i came across this excellent post of yours & decided to ask a few follow ups now that 10 months have passed & the pain is long forgotten (?) :D

how is it all going?

is there anything you would've done differently?

did you have plans to work a fly-screen in? i doubt very much we could live without it here - i read about a novel solution in another post - a member's brother hung two bi-folds glass inward & flyscreen outward

thanks

brynk

Someones dragged up my thread I see. :D
Your deck looks great, and that was a good write up brynk. :U

Everything's going fine. They need a mickey hair off the bottom of one of them, but the tolerances were pretty tight at the bottom when I installed them. They could do with a tiny bit of adjustment to get the gap perfectly even where they meet in the centre, but they still work like a dream. It's just run of the mill KD Hwd so a bit of movement was to be expected. Fifteen minutes with a screw gun and a planer should fix the bottom, and ten minutes farting around with the hinges should fix the gaps.
I don't expect much more settlement of the LVL now that it's been fully loaded up for so long, but it is timber so it may keep going very slowly. I've got heaps of height adjustment there if I need it though. A couple of minutes with a spanner and I could crank them up a bit if the beam sags. If I need more than about 10mm then I can remove the eaves and lift the track, but I doubt that will ever be necessary.

My only regret is that I didn't spend longer on the finishing, ie more sanding/ more coats. The finish is still shiny but it was never very flat, and there are a few places where you can see tracks from the belt sander. A big drum sander would have been nice at the time, but meh.

I noticed the fly screens in that thread when it was posted. They look like a good idea, but they wouldn't be wide enough for my doors. The flies aren't that big a problem here though.
I designed and built my own cavity sliding fly screens for french doors on a place I had up north on Myall Lakes once, and in the windows I made roller types built into the heads. They were draw string operated and not spring loaded. Unfortunately the place was empty for quite a few years and vandals got in and smashed all the windows and doors, stole the front door that I'd built with a curved leadlight highlight, and on top of that, the white ants got in through some timber that I'd carelessly left standing in the wrong place, so we had to demolish and it's just a block of land now. It used to look like this:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...ngnewest-1.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DJ's Timber

A video of you opening and closing the doors would be great I reckon

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Well I've got a still camera with video function now, so If I can work out how/where to upload a film I might do just that. I'm working out the back and the deck and back room is a big mess at the moment so I don't know when I'll be able to get around to it.
I'll post the cost break up as well. I've got that somewhere.

thanks for the further tips, feedback on our deck so far & this good info. resource as well - the girl & i sat down tonight & went through your photos and the post; discussed a few things and are keen on the bi-fold solution due to opening size - and so the cycle begins again! (but not until i get a beer rail & a couple of steps fixed off ;))

r's brynk