Home DIY

It's actually easier to build up the edges as the cut edge is pretty rough.

And my cutting is not the straightest.

I'm guessing that planes hardwood trim is the way to go for the build up bits?

Re: bevelling (probably the wrong term) I mean cutting the sides down off square (by 2 - 3 degrees) to prevent sticking.

I've a bunch of 19mm ply offcuts, so I can at least attempt a few jigs. And to practice with a chisel.

Weight-wise, the full sheet door is 42kg - the smaller size would be ~29kg. Not fun, but not completely unmanageable. Hopefully a surplus of clamps and air wedges will make it doable.

Much appreciated - thanks!

I may give them a coating of oil on the inside - the outside will have 60mm of battens & cladding

The problem with the 8x4 is 4 foot is quite a stretch to apply all your lifting force and 8 ft is the height of most ceilings so you mostly need to handle it on it's side indoors.

I run down the hardwood strips from larger stock on a trim saw (small table saw). Sapele usually. It's pretty boring if you have 8-10 of them to do but doing 1 is quite achievable.

The bevel, a few degrees, yes that's a thing you can do at the fitting stage. I dial it in with the track saw. I'm not sure you have to have it but it helps to maintain a narrow gap at the visible edge.

I'm pretty sure someone did a breakdown of hanging doors on here not so long ago. It's easier to do than it is to think about sometimes.

Wow. DIY thread is Popcorn Tread worthy.

Building up sounds like the way to go then. Ta!

And I've found the door hanging post.

@Dammit what is the goal of making these doors? I’ve sort of lost the original problem.

From my very limited experience of making doors for a few summer houses and sheds, some with glass infills/windows, all
I can say it that it was a massive pain in the arse and every time I underestimated the effort as well as overestimated my skills. They always ended up warped and not aligning but that speaks to my lack of skill more than anything.

If you have the time and patience then it could be a great and rewarding thing to do. If you’re actually moving to Edinburgh/ Scotland and the garages are a short term ownership thing I would probably opt for the easier route and...do nothing. But then I’m pretty lazy like that.

Put simply I like learning things and I like projects. I need new doors, although it’s far from urgent, so this would be a spring/summer thing next year. I don’t own the garages yet- and may never do so.

I knocked down a lot of my flat and rebuilt it myself because I wanted to learn how, which admittedly did take a while.

If you want the challenge then go for it!

I’d imagine there are some pretty good YouTube videos out there for carriage house doors.

This looks quite helpful for step by step from a “non-carpenter” type.

Edit: this also looks good: http://www.cmoist.com/building-huge-carriage-style-doors/

I need a good IT ponce to fix my bay windows. Failing that, a carpenter.

Just to add to the garage door thread (@Dammit), are the existing doors sprung or counterweighted? I ask only because every time someone on Reddit asks, "what's incredibly dangerous that nobody knows about?" garage door springs are always mentioned. As I understand it the sheer energy that they can hold and suddenly release if mishandled is potentially lethal.

As I understand it the sheer energy that they can hold and suddenly release if mishandled is potentially lethal.

True of any decent-sized spring under load. There are very few tools which genuinely scare me. OxyAcetylene kit is one, chop saw is another, and spring compressors definitely fall into that category. I don't have to use them that often, but when I do it's definitely squeaky bum time.

I’d imagine there are some pretty good YouTube videos out there for carriage house doors.

This looks quite helpful for step by step from a “non-carpenter” type.

Edit: this also looks good: http://www.cmoist.com/building-huge-carr­iage-style-doors/

These are really interesting - thanks.

Read them both now - I'm confident that I could do what the second chap did.

Thanks for this, I’m heavy so have opted for three section, its only 2kg heavier and yes well reminded but I had already planned for the standoff. No point looking to see if the gutters are broken by resting a ladder on them. Also I’ll be swinging a brush about and dangerously over reaching so the more stabilisers I have the better.

Not wanting to knock your desire to learn new skills but why not just fit roller shutters? This is not from any this job is too big for you stance but from an advert to thieves stance, especially if you will be leaving the area unattended for long periods. Having fancy expensive looking doors could be an advert that there is something nice inside and make your garages the ones that any thief would target whereas new but basic looking doors will arouse less suspicion of the contents.

Also if there’s power you can have electric doors, which are rad.

Solar panels on the roof connected to a leisure battery, that’s a project right there.

The garage that the Porsche has been in for two months isn't locked, and any determined thief could get through the locked door by pulling on the frame of the door until it twists out of the frame (and then the fearsome Spring Of DOOM might kill them I suppose).

Which could of course mean that thieves see that the door isn't locked and don't even pull it up to check what's in there, so convinced are they that the lack of lock means = nothing in here.

Our block has a sibling - Taymount Grange. It's listed, we're not - I suspect because they're got all their Crittall windows and we're 100% PVC double glazing. Their block has been better cared for than ours it must be said, and has a grander approach.

I think out block would be nicer with a return to the Crittall window (in looks if nothing else), and the shitty and cheap garage doors replacing the nice hardwood ones is one symptom of "as cheap as possible and damn the character" approach that has afflicted the block for 30 or so years.

I don't know how long the last remaining pair of original doors will last, maybe another 90 years - but they're looking somewhat ragged now.

So - one of the reasons I'd like to replace the crap up-and-over doors with carriage doors is to try to keep a little bit of the character of the place.

Where did you the Led tubes?

LED tubes was the wrong term, they're just these, were on sale around £35 at the time though!

https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-twin-6ft-led-batten-white-60w-6000lm/3428v

Anyone seen something similar to this or led flat panels that would be aesthetically pleasing in a normal room? I have a utility/bike room in the flat and the lighting for working on stuff is terrible atm.

Cross post from IoT thread:

I want to replace my four garage light strips (fluorescent) with LED battens - think I'll probably swap the entire units out rather than swap just the tubes for LED. Goal is to provide more / better light so upping lumens and temp (3000k to 5000k).

At the same time, I was thinking it would be handy to add the lights to Apple Homekit - either to use Siri to turn the lights on when I'm carrying something, or get them to turn on when I open the garage door (HomeKit connected already).

I can't find any HomeKit battens that exist so is there a way to add HomeKit to the switch or somewhere in the ring?

I've been down the LED rabbit hole recently looking for battens. No luck finding anything that has a high CRI. Instead I've made some battens using high CRI tape and aluminium extrusions with diffuser covers.

On the face of it one of these would make a batten compatible with homekit :-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Compatible-Homekit-NOTSEK-Wireless-Appliances/dp/B08QV7S29N/ref=asc_df_B08QV7S29N/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=500831724152&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16494646369517009358&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9072504&hvtargid=pla-1273033326692&psc=1

It's not earthed which might be an issue for some applications.

My 2p worth on the door chat.
I've made smaller panel doors and they don't half like to warp. I suspect those original doors are made from slow-grown pitch pine. Modern Scandinavian pine is absolutely shit in comparison. You may get away with poplar.
So get friendly with a good sawmill because I suspect you will need good, properly seasoned wood. Teak maybe. Acacia might do a nice job if you can get it. It works quite well for outdoor furniture if properly protected from the elements. Take advice from the sawmill.
The other reason to get it from a sawmill is the cost. Much cheaper than buying retail.
Using hardwood make the doors extremely heavy compared with pine. So they will be hard to hang and may put too much stress on the frame.

Depends on the sawmill but if they can't supply it in tongue and groove you'll need to do that yourself, and the best way is with a router table.

The construction is probably like a barn door with big thick sides&7 top and the lower part is Z shaped frame on the inside to nail the T&G planks onto. The horizontals are probably mortice and tenon joints. I've never tried using them because it's too hard and I don't have the right tools. Maybe a router table and a table saw will do it
The sides and visible horizontals are tongued or grooved to accept the planks too.

A router table would be the best tool for making the glazing bars too, but I've no idea how to construct that. I think there is one horizontal and 4 verticals. However, I'd caution against including the glass. There's no fucking way I'd have windows into my garage, especially not in South London, so think about panelling that and just sticking on some routed sections to reproduce the pattern.