Barn Doors

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• 2, 15″ gate hinges (the loops at the bottom are where gate bolts would attach it to a gate).
• bolts and nuts to attach the hinge to the door

For the track, Dan originally looked for either pipe or solid stock. These were so expensive, however, that it would have been easier to buy the ready-made track. Instead he made his own.

• 1/4″ by 1″ flat bar (aka strapping, Dan drilled the holes), total of 12 feet
• oak ripped to 3/4″ wide and 1.5″ thick, total of 12 feet
• flat head screws

The flat bar is the same width as the flat pulley. (If the pulley was rounded inside the wheel, pipe would have fit better.)

To attach the track to the barn:

• 7, 90-degree 6″ angle brackets 
• 7 scraps of 1/2″ plywood for spacers
• screws

The door itself is made two pieces of 1/2″ plywood and homemilled boards. The X pattern keeps the plywood from twisting or warping.

It’s heavy, so Dan did not attach the wheels to the door on the ends. He attached them 24 inches from the edges of the door to help prevent the door from sagging.

It’s an eight-foot door, so this means that the pulley wheels are four feet apart. Another advantage to this was that the track didn’t have to be as long. If the wheels had been at the edges of the door the track would have to be 16 feet instead of the 12 he made it.

I have to say that even though the door itself is very heavy, it glides on the track very easily.

A few other details: stops for the wheels and door.

The final cost for making the track and wheel system ourselves was only about a third of what it would cost to buy the track and hardware ready-made.

On the other hand, when you DIY you sometimes run into things you hadn’t planned on. For example, the door was hitting on one of the battens (that’s what I’m calling the strips of wood that cover the edge where the sheets of plywood meet). Dan’s solution was to make something to guide the door to slide over the batten.

The only other problem was caused by the unevenness of the ground. It left a gap under the closed door that we didn’t want. Dan used a broken pillar top that we saved from our front porch demolition two years ago.

It evens out the ground, blocks the gap under the closed door, and the goats think it’s something to claim.

One last shot of the inside:

The only things left to do are to paint it and to move the post that you see in the second photo. Then we can get started on some windows.

Hopefully everything is fairly self-explanatory, but Dan said that if anyone wants more specific details to email us. (Hey, I think I feel another eBook for The Little Series of Homestead How-Tos coming on, LOL).

at http://www.5acresandadream.com/