Barn Door

Have you ever gone through half a day at work only to realize you forgot to close the barn door before leaving the house?  Well I have....more than once.  And while the pair of pants may differ, the visceral response is always the same:  humiliation.  How many people noticed?  Am I wearing underwear today?  Am I going to be sued for sexual harassment?

While it fortunately has been quite some time since I've suffered this indignity, the realization that I made a major miscalculation when framing out the wall for my bookshelf door was nonetheless just as embarrassing.    In short, I didn't make the doorway wide enough.  Let me explain.  As you can see from the diagram below, I framed the wall to roughly accomodate a 4' wide passage way:

The rationale behind a 4' wide door was this bad boy:

This "secret room" was designed for the sole purpose of housing my Super Chexx Bubble Hockey arcade game.  The game's red base is large and unforgiving....it only fits through a 36" wide door.  So of course, I figured a 4' wide passage way would give me plenty of wiggle room to get my game in once the project was finished and also allow me to get it out when we some day sell this place.

Well, after considerable research on hidden bookshelf doors I came to a painful realization....my framed opening wasn't wide enough.  The reason for this has to do with how these bookshelf's are designed....they make use of something called an offset pivot hing.  Aside from being ludicrously expensive (in excess of $1,000.00 for a pair of hinges), these hinges are mounted not at the corner of the shelf like a traditional door hinge, but rather are inset into the the frame of the bookshelf to reduce the length of the lever arm created by a fully loaded bookcase.  Here's a basic schematic of how these hinges work and why they result in a drastic reduction in the width of one's passage way:

Bookshelf closed

Bookshelf open

Once again, this is why architects get the big bucks...they don't make mistakes like this.  Had I realized this a year and half ago when I was designing my project, I could have easily framed out a larger opening....but now with my drywall up and trim installed, it was too late.  Of course, it did occur to me that I could simply move the arcade game in and THEN build the bookshelf, but there is no way I was going to just give away this arcade game with the house when we move someday.  I also considered the notion that I could just disassemble the shelf to get the game out when the time came to sell our home, but this seemed like a ton of work.  But proably the biggest deterrent was the cost of these hinges...$1,250?!?!  Really?!?!  Sorry, Charie...I'll pass.

So with my proverbial barn door open for all to see, it was time to figure out an alternative solution.  Its instances like this where sometimes your problem becomes your solution.  In this case, the answer was an actual barn door!  Sliding barn doors come in dozens of styles and are often utilized in contemporary design.  Better yet, the hardware for these doors is a fraction of the cost of pivot hinges (generally under $200.00).

I set forth designing my barn door and ordered the requisite hardware.  Using tung and groove vertical grain fir for the door slab, I cut my boards to length and created a flat work surface on the concrete floor to assemble the slab

T&G cut to length

The only large flat work surface left in my shop

With my work surface prepped, I made quick work of joining the tung and groove.  Once assembled, I fastened bracing to the back side of the door and then applied several coats of tung oil over the following days.

assembled slab

Rollers installed

One element I decided to add to my door were "bite blocks" or "bite guards."  Bite blocks are used in traditional barn doors where livestock (usually horses) are kept.  They are essentially steel frames which are attached to each edge of the door...they discourage horses and other barn animals from chewing the edge of the door.  While I certainly will not be housing any live stock in my cave, I do like design elements that stay true to their origin. 

Bite Guards.  This stable has steel bite guards on every exposed edge to prevent the horse from chewing on the frame when the doors are left open for shows and feedings.

Fabricating this throw back element wasn't exactly straight forward.  I wanted something a little cleaner and more minimal looking than the bite guards traditionally found in stables.  I also felt this design element could provide a clean and finished appearance to the cut edges of my slab.  

My solution:  cut steel tubing in half.  If coulddo this, I would end up with 2 "U" shaped channels that could be affixed to each side of the door. Lacking a vertical metal bandsaw, I called on my good buddy Jim.  

We started by laying out the holes to be drilled and the location of the center cut.  Jim taught me a great trick for laying out steel.  Layouts are typically done with a carbide tipped pen.  While certainly effective, the scribe marks left are often hard to see (especially in poor lighting).  Dykem is a blue colored dye that can be painted onto the steel to enhance your layout demarcations.  It works great...check it out:

No dye...note the faint line in the center of the steel tube

Paint on a little dykem first and THEN scribe your layout

Viola...lines are easy to see.

With the layout complete (and highly visible), it was time to drill and countersink my holes.
  

Counter sunk holes.  These will be concealed on the back side of the barn door.

After finishing the holes, it was time to make the long linear cut to create my 2 "U" channels.  I let Jim do the honors (after all, its his saw):

Jim threads the needle...another flawless cut!

 With my steel "U" channels in hand, it was time clean them up for paint and install.  I had to smooth out the rough cut edges with an angle grinder and also had to remove the burrs on the back side of the countersunk holes.
 

Inside of bite guard...notice the burs where the hole was drilled.  They had to come off before the "U" shaped steel would slide over the door slab

I then painted the steel U-channels matte back with a high end aerosol paint (3 coats) and mounted the finished channels to my barn door:

Screws were hand painted in the same matte back after the channel installation was complete

But before I could hang the door, I had to have the carpet installed and button up the final finishing details of the cave.  So sadly, the big reveal will have to wait.  Until next time.