Making large doors for workshop

[Rick Haigh]

I am looking for a website or information on making large doors for my workshop. I have seen a good website before, but I am unable to find it now. My opening is approximately 12'wide and 12' tall. I do not have room for a conventional garage door, since it would take up room inside my shop. Any help or good sites would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Rick

[Lynn Kasdorf]

I had to make a door to my compressor shed. It was an odd size, so make was the only option. The door is about 5' wide and 6' tall.

The building is sided with T-111, so that is what I made the door with. I made a frame by milling up some nice quality fir 2x4's. The frame has a dado slot milled along the indside for the T-111 to ride in.

The corners join with bridle joints (I think that is the name)- basically a through-tenon that is the full width of the board. Lotsa glue surface, and you get a bit of wiggle room to make the whole thing square.

The T-111 panel floats in the channel of course. After glueing, squaring up and air nailing the corners, I made an X brace out of some thin oak I had from pallets. The stuff is about 1/2" x 3 1/2". I planed it down to a thickness such that it would be flush with the surface of the frame, which turned out to be about 3/8".

I very carefully cut a diagonal so that it went from corner to corner, very snugly. Then I fit another diagonal to form the X, but this was actually 2 pieces- they dont overlap the first diagonal.

These were glued and bradded to the T-111.

I put it up last summer, and it has not sagged or warped at al, even tho it has no finish at all (I was in a hurry to enclose the shed). I plan to take it down and paint it well.

It looks pretty good, and matches my shed.

[Chris Damm]

http://www.woodshopdemos.com/ John Lucas' site has blow by blow account on building doors.

[Russ Filtz]

If you want to buy, maybe an aircraft hangar door will work. Either the kind that slides sideways, or one called a bi-fold. Both those types do not roll/fold into the interior space. Bi-fold company is called Schweiss out of MN, 507-426-8273. I think there are many doing it. You may find one locally. Prices I got were even lower than a normal rollup/sectional door. Your size may be a little small for them, so I don't know how the price will pan out. I was pricing doors 90' wide by 33' tall!

[Dale Sherman]

Hi Rick,
I did a search for info when I started to build my doors (9'W x 8'H opening). I ended up finding used raised panel doors which I rebuilt. One good info source is Designer Doors (http://www.designerdoors.com/Studio/LE/ag_doordetails.htm). Not exactly full plans, but lots of good info.

Bifold doors (vertical or horizontal), hinged doors or sliding doors are your only other options. Sliding doors are hard to seal against air leakage, hinged doors get caught in the wind. If you go with large hinged doors, add electric openers to control them.

I like doors with Douglas fir framing and cedar siding. Add a foam core and exterior plywood on the inside and you've got a strong, insulated, weather-resitant door.

Tell us more about the application and maybe we can be more specific.

Dale

[Rick Haigh]

Thanks guys! Chris you gave the site that I had found before. The woodshopdemos site gives a good example of building the doors.

Rick