looking for hardware for a large door

[Bird Cupps]

Hello

I'm building a nice shop with a large door opening (8 x 12) and I want to make two big carriage style doors. I'm interested in strap hinges and looking for a good source.I

I'm thinking I'll build a torsion-box for the door to keep it from getting too heavy. Any resources for a project like this are welcome. I've never made a door this size before--so an adventure!

kind regards

Bird Cupps

[Richard Coers]

I'd suggest you will be better off to stay with large ball bearing butt hinges compared to strap hinges. I've never seen straps with a tight pin and certainly not the height you get with butts. Plus you can get them in stainless steel. If you need the look of strap hinges, just buy some fakes and screw them to the skin of the door.

[Dominik Dudkiewicz]

Hi Bird,

Might not be too helpful as they are from Australia, but I recently made some 7.5' x 10' carriage doors and used 24" strap hinges to hang them. As stated there is a lot of slop in the pins so you need to compensate for this when hanging - as you know the top hinge will effectively move out and the bottom move in as the slop is taken out. I got this a little off on one of the leaves and will need to adjust a couple of mm at some stage.

Otherwise the strap hinges work very well and move freely. I think they will be great for the long-term.

I got them from Blackwood Country Gates in Australia and I imagine that given the monstrous weight shipping would be prohibitive.

I made my doors using Accoya Pine and went for a paint finish as they face the direction of both the strong evening sun and strong winds/wind blown rain so was not confident a natural finish would hold up at all without constant maintenance.

Sorry I don't have close ups of the hinges but here are some random pics of the hinges / doors at various stages of the whole garage/door construction.
422251

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Cheers, Dom

[Jim Becker]

You might find this video useful...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEmhfZg8NY0

[Paul F Franklin]

Ball bearing strap hinges are available and would be a good way to go. Here is one source: https://www.hardwaresource.com/extra-heavy-duty-ball-bearing-strap-hinge.html but there are others as well.

They have a good chart that shows how many hinges you need based on door weight and door moment (weight times width). I was planning to use them on a project for a client but they ended up going with roll up doors for cost reasons, so I didn't end up actually buying/using the hinges, but they look to be really sturdy.

They are, however, $$$

[Tom M King]

Richards-Wilcox

https://rwhardware.com/

[Jamie Buxton]

You might find this video useful...

That is quite a good video. There's much more content and less filler than most YouTube videos. He covers torsion box construction quite well. His tip about using a laser level to ensure flatness is very good.

He does do one thing which concerns me. He uses ordinary framing lumber to make the door. Here on the west coast, framing lumber is green. As it dries, it will likely warp. If I'm trying to make something really flat like a torsion box I'd start with dry lumber.

[Bird Cupps]

So many helpful posts here. Hoping to build this in the warmer months.

[Michael A. Tyree]

My two big shop doors are 3/4" planed yellow poplar, ~ 10' wide each by 9' tall and have been in place since mid-1980's, no torsion boxes (whatever that is?), common face nailed wooden braces and hang there like a charm on barn door hinges. Inside I have a home made sliding wood bar and a pull chain overhead latch. Source was a local building supply, nothing special.
The front opening is under another open air roofed area, so when it's nice outside, even though raining, I open them up and sit a cheap box fan on the floor pulling out dust and creating airflow from windows.
My resources were carpentry experience. Google barn doors?