Hardware for massive bay doors?

[ayerwood]

Hello all and Happy Thanksgiving!

Ok folks, I have a bit of a predicament.  I have 2 large bay doors for my shop that I need to build and set.  The sooner the better before winter really sets in.  I will be building them with cedar and will be using insulation board sandwiched in between 1x's.  They will be approximately 2.5 inches thick.  One door is 24' wide and 16' tall. The other is 30' wide and 18' tall.

I want the doors to fold into the side of the bays.  I am thinking of using u channel and some swiveling industrial casters within the tracks but am not sure how one caster, centrally attached on the bottom, could be made to "solidify" the doors in their position.  I have several thoughts including 2 bi-folding doors(4 doors total) or one by itself and a bi-fold next to it(3 doors total). I am really open to any combination.

Also, on the 24' wide door, if I don't use the track system, I may just have our local fabricator knock out some oversized strap hitches for me.  The ball bearing type.  It would then just be two barn doors opening out.  Once again, I'm open to anything...except roll down garage door types.  It just wouldn't work aesthetically.

I was hoping that some of you out there had some thoughts/ideas or experience in putting in big doors like this.  And any pics of the work would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks so much to you all!!!

[5quarter]

Wow,...sounds like your building the gates of Mordor. You may need a couple trolls to open and close them. ;)

[Holmes]

 Instead of swiveling how about 2 or 3 bypass doors on separate lower tracks.  As you pull the first section out each additional section catches an overlap seal and gets pulled out. Instead of folding into the side bays the bypass tracks could gently curve and then stack one section behind the other and so on.  I've seen some doors ride on 1/2" steel pipe set on the barn floor with rollers that fit the pipe.
I am working at a barn now that will have a 12'x 14' sliding glass door at each end. They will roll on a bottom track, the latch will set the door on the track or raise the door so it can smoooothly roll, slide out of sight

[John Mc]

Check out some airports near you for ideas for handling massive doors. What you are looking for has been invented many times over for aircraft hangar doors.  Unless the doors are extremely heavy, these sliding doors are hung from above. They usually do not use tracks on the ground since these would tend to fill up with debris or snow (those that do have tracks on the ground tend to be designs that sit inside the building rather than out).

I've seen sliding doors on tracks that are hung outside the building. These work OK (my hangar has them), but here are some considerations:

• They are easy to install and maintain, and the mechanism is simple -- this is very similar to what a lot of sliding barn doors are.
• The track and rollers are mounted on the outside of the wall and more exposed (though usually the track and rollers are in a sort of housing, shielded from the elements, open on the bottom)
• If the door is near the edge of the building, you have to build a bit of a structure beyond the edge of the building to support the track that holds the door when open
• If you're in snow country, you may have a good bit of shoveling to do to get your doors to slide -- especially if you are under the eaves of the building (rather than on the gable end), and your overhangs do not extend out enough, thus dumping shedded snow in a pile right at the base of your door.
• usually need some means of keeping the bottom of the doors from being blown out at the bottom away from the building. Not hard to accomplish, but if not designed and maintained correctly, you'll likely lose your doors in a wind storm

I've also seen sliding doors that go around the bend just before the edge of the opening, so the doors are stowed along the inside of the side walls of the building when open (I hope I'm describing that in a way you can understand it)

• The tracks and rollers are generally more protected, mounted on the inner side of the wall, or just under the header over the opening.
• Less shovelling of snow
• you lose the use of some wall space inside the building, since you have to keep it clear for the door operation

Another thing to take a look at are overhead bifold doors.  Tough to describe, but just about every airport in anyplace I've lived has them. They are a very popular design -  there are good reasons that these are some of the most popular options on airports in most parts of the country.  They are overhead doors, but not "roll up doors"

• little or not shoveling of snow
• tracks and mechanism very well protected
• generally are motorized - you don't want to crank these things up by hand
• look nice and lots of good designs for latching securely in place when closed - airports tend to be wide-open places, exposed to the wind.

An interesting idea I saw once, was a 4 panel door. The outer panels were hinged to swing inward, like an ordinary house door (so it was easy to open up a smaller part of the door). The middle two panels slid on tracks, crossing where the outer panels were, and sliding outside of the building wall.  There was enough wall to hang tracks on for one panel on either side of the opening, so he did not have to build extensions to support longer tracks.

[redbeard]

If you have the room pocket them on the inside. Small boat tires mounted on flange with spindles. If you don't want tracks. Make the door frames out of aluminum square tubing with enough perlins to fasten board n bats. Fabricate flat steel rail with mounts and wheels with bearings with heavy duty strap emulate old barn hardware.(greaseable bolt arbor). Wind is the enemy in our area swinging or bifold that big could be a hazard. Hanging Freezer flaps the kind fork lifts run through work good for door sweep and where doors come together. Just a idea

[John Mc]

I've got a write up on hangar doors I came across years ago with some good pictures and diagrams.  PM me if you'd like me to send you a copy.

[Rockn H]

When I first read this post, the bi-fold doors like John referred to is what first came to mind.  The bottom folds up and the center folds out.  It leaves you with what looks like a sideways V.  Makes a nice awning as well.  The only problem is you lose about 4 to 5 foot of door height.

I've also seen doors that wide that are four sections with the two center sections overlapping the outer sections slightly when closed.  These are just hung at the top from rails on the outside of the building.  You have two sets of rails.  The rail closest to building for the outer doors and the rail on the outside for the inner doors.  Flashing to match the building is used to cover the rails and top few inches of door for weather protection.  The bottom of the doors have pins that go into the floor to secure them when shut.   This design doesn't take as much space for the open doors and you can open just one door up to all four.

[scsmith42]

I have thought about this as well.  What I came up with for a hinge was using spindle assembles from trailer axles at the top and bottom of one door, heavy strap hinges between the doors, and idler wheel at the bottom of the inside door and a track and guide pin at the top.