Build Your Own Segmented Garage Door?

[scootermcrad]

Anyone build there own standard roll-up (segmented) garage door using regular old garage door hardware and tracks?

I know in the next couple years I'm going to have to start planning on some garage doors for our house. The previous owners of our house replaced one door with a SUPER crappy aluminum door (cheapest they could get away with) and we're left with one wood door that's much nicer looking but is really showing it's ware. Looking at the wood door it looks like the construction is pretty simple and it uses common door hardware. So it got me thinking, since I pretty much have all the tools to do it, why not make my own?

So has anyone made their own segmented type garage door panels? What materials would be best? I know weight will be a big planning factor, so what will be relatively lightweight, yet will handle the outdoor elements and remain dimensionally stable? What is the maximum weight a COMMON roll-up spring will handle?

OH... and I'm not really interested in re-facing or putting a veneer on a cheap-o door. Would just really like to make some nice doors that will last a long time and add some nice character to the garage. And, having the satisfaction of making them myself.

I saw this article in another thread, but again, not really interested in doing a veneer.
http://www.familyhandyman.com/doors/garage-door-repair/garage-door-makeover/step-by-step

Our house lends itself very well to the character of carriage doors, but when pricing out the carriage door styled roll-ups they are BIIIIG money.

Any thoughts or input would be appreciated!

Thanks guys!

 

[AndyL]

Yes, done it to match vintage existing doors... no wouldnt recommend it...

Typically i prefer the luan and 1x4 (or preferably 2x4) construction, with a polyurethane foam to insulate/adhere it all together... but time/materials wise - I'd suggest just buying a decent quality door...

My. 03

 

[scootermcrad]

Yes, done it to match vintage existing doors... no wouldnt recommend it...

Typically i prefer the luan and 1x4 (or preferably 2x4) construction, with a polyurethane foam to insulate/adhere it all together... but time/materials wise - I'd suggest just buying a decent quality door...

My. 03

Any pictures you can share of the work? Can you tell me a little more about the actual construction method?

At about $3500 to $5000 for a single "carriage style" roll up, I think I'll at least consider making them.

This is exactly the style I'm considering building, except actually wood. Fairly simple overall design, aesthetically...

(sorry for the large picture. Couldn't figure out how to scale it down)

 

[Sureshot]

I have never done it bit if you want a custom door it would be the way to go. You can get all kinds of springs. Maybe keep an eye for used or junk industrial doors in a bigger size where you can get the hardware off them so weight is not an issue. If so inclined and talented you could build a very nice door.

Your pic posted while I was reading and composing. My first thought for the door you pic is too build it in one piece then cut it with a track saw or well set up skillsaw.

 

[kbs2244]

A carriage style door is going to need a lot of milling.
But with good jigs a well equipped wood shop there is no reason you cannot do it.

Just remember the panels do not have to be the same vertical size.
Mixing and matching is one way to get the right overall height.

 

[BudgetRacing]

You can make the door any weight you want. Just be sure they are all somewhat close in weight to make it balance better. Take the total weight of the door and hardware. Mark down the drum model and the track radius and any good door company should be able to make you a set of springs that will work with your door.

 

[AndyL]

You can get full hardware packages for most doors fairly cheaply... Heck ebay's a reasonable starting point there... Saw some "tuneup" kits that were cheaper than some of my costs of components even with shipping.

Ok, how big's the door - basic answer is pick your poison for the outside skin - we usually use 3/16" marine grade ply. Have a good look at the typical garage door rabbet - it's a quick job to router a match (remember up to the inside, keep the water out). Router your top rail to create the rabbet, then across the bottom - 3/8" dado. Bottom of the bottom section - no rabbet needed; but dado the top. your stiles make fit between - include a rabbet, I like glue and some pocket screws... if you're a single, generally you need a single center stile, double go with 4/8/12' o/c. (so 3 center hinges)

glue/nail the structure to the outer face, lay on a good flat table... Then find some nice closed cell 2part urethane (low expansion formula, the stuff I get here has no name, but has a lovely chart - depending on temperature / humidity gives you a ounces -> cu.ft. chart/wheel thats pretty damn close. (so measure carefully per section of the door). Good old paint roller & water the interior void - Pour it in - drop the back on with a couple clamps and a few finishing nails - drill a couple 'escape holes' as a hail mary...

Then you have a solid wood section - once you've got enough to fill the hole in the garage - flip over, clamp together and lay your pretty parts overtop, separate and finish before install...

 

[scootermcrad]

Hey! There we go! Thanks for the input! Good stuff! And I agree with the idea to just picking up new hardware. The ceiling is a high ceiling in the garage (12-1/2'), so I would like to move the tracks closer to the ceiling anyway. The existing tracks are in good shape, so I'll just get the extensions needed. The openers will probably get replaced at the same time, also. They are old lift-masters and I've been having nothing but issues with them, since they were probably never properly cared for by the PO's of the house.

Great input, AndyL! I appreciate you taking the time to add that! And a GREAT idea on the rabbets at each panel. We get driving rain from that side of the house pretty often, and I find that the current garage doors let a bit in. Do you ever used LVL type nominal lumber (like engineered 2x4's) for construction? I definitely like the marine grade stuff. It will last forever. My experience with certain types of marine grade were that they were heavy. Are they all like that? We used marine grade for crates at the last place I worked, but I have no idea what exact type of plywood it was.

The doors will be 9'-wide by 8'-tall.

 

[Average_Joe]

I would consider these steel doors: http://www.wayne-dalton.com/residential/carriage-house-steel/Pages/garage-door-model-9700.aspx

I would call a few local garage door companies and get quotes for steel before you try to make some. The material cost alone will be high for the wood doors and they will rot eventually.

 

[scootermcrad]

The one wood door we have on the garage now is at least 50 years old. Only signs of rot are at the bottom where the seal has dried up and deteriorated, allowing water to sit right up against the wood bottom sitting right on the concrete slab. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that the correct materials and proper care should allow a wood garage door of any design and style to last a long time. I'm just not much for the "feux" stuff, since the house is a 75 year old historic piece of real estate with lots of hand-crafted elements to the house. I feel like it would be a great injustice for me to not put some real nice quality doors on. Hand-made compliments the character of the house even more. I WAS going to do actual carriage doors, since it's probably what the house had to begin with, but they're just not practical for the way the garage and drive are laid out, 75 years after it was built.

I'm having a hard time believing it would cost more to build the doors myself, given my labor and time is free. The prices I HAVE gotten for wood, carriage house looking doors, is very expensive.

What can I say... I'm just a DIY kind of guy. To me, it's rewarding to work on certain elements of the house myself. The house has had a long history of people who have added their own work and time into the house. We decided we wanted to be the next to add our time and devotion to the house.

I'm not sure why I'm getting all the resistance for building the doors myself. Maybe I'm in the wrong place... Is there another part of the forum I should have posted this thread?

 

[uncletater]

"What can I say... I'm just a DIY kind of guy. To me, it's rewarding to work on certain elements of the house myself. The house has had a long history of people who have added their own work and time into the house. We decided we wanted to be the next to add our time and devotion to the house."


You got my vote on giving it a shot. I too live in an older home see what your saying. Its often fun and rewarding to build it and step back an say Damn I did that myself.

I too agree that your labor is free and you should be able to decide what you what to do and how much money you think your time is worth. I have had "discussions" with my wife about just paying someone to do something. I often want to do it myself just to learn and feel the pride of doing it myself.

GO FOR IT!!! Take lots of pictures.

 

[scootermcrad]

"What can I say... I'm just a DIY kind of guy. To me, it's rewarding to work on certain elements of the house myself. The house has had a long history of people who have added their own work and time into the house. We decided we wanted to be the next to add our time and devotion to the house."


You got my vote on giving it a shot. I too live in an older home see what your saying. Its often fun and rewarding to build it and step back an say Damn I did that myself.

I too agree that your labor is free and you should be able to decide what you what to do and how much money you think your time is worth. I have had "discussions" with my wife about just paying someone to do something. I often want to do it myself just to learn and feel the pride of doing it myself.

GO FOR IT!!! Take lots of pictures.

Yeah, I definitely know "where I draw the line" with do it yourself and hire someone else, and I feel like this is well within' the realm of giving it a go, and being that the doors will be painted, not stained, I don't really need to use a wood type that would be considered "exotic" by any means. Sooo....

...why not!? Right?!

I've seen very little on how to do something like this, and I would share anything I ended up doing (if I end up doing it). Figured I would reach out to you folks with the hopes that maybe someone has been through this and can provide input and some insight and it would be fantastic if someone had some more construction techniques to share.

 

[Hornman]

One suggestion: if you build your door like the carriage door in the picture where the sections are touching, do not use latex paint. The latex paint on the two sections will stick together and glue the sections together. When the sections are forced apart at the curve in the track it is likely that the paint will pull loose from the wood at some point. Oil based paint does not do this.

 

[stingry]

A carriage style door is going to need a lot of milling.
But with good jigs a well equipped wood shop there is no reason you cannot do it.
Just remember the panels do not have to be the same vertical size.
Mixing and matching is one way to get the right overall height.

What he said!! To build carriage doors as pictured is a pretty big undertaking but very doable. What is shown is stile and rail construction, requiring a special set of cutters and either a big *** router and table or a shaper. If you do not already have these, they are quite expensive and may not be worth the investment for a one-time job! Then there is the required materials. You will want either 5/4 or 6/4 tight-grained, minimal or no knot stock, also quite expensive. Starting to see my point? It would be a great project but may not be cost effective, depending on your skill level and available equipment.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Sureshot]

I am not sure of the detail the op wants or just the illusion of carriage style in a rollup but from what I see a good table saw should be able to get that job done and look decent. If you want the hands on ooh and aah it will take more. Wood work always seems to have more than one way to skin.

 

[wrench409]

The one wood door we have on the garage now is at least 50 years old. Only signs of rot are at the bottom where the seal has dried up and deteriorated, allowing water to sit right up against the wood bottom sitting right on the concrete slab. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that the correct materials and proper care should allow a wood garage door of any design and style to last a long time. I'm just not much for the "feux" stuff, since the house is a 75 year old historic piece of real estate with lots of hand-crafted elements to the house. I feel like it would be a great injustice for me to not put some real nice quality doors on. Hand-made compliments the character of the house even more. I WAS going to do actual carriage doors, since it's probably what the house had to begin with, but they're just not practical for the way the garage and drive are laid out, 75 years after it was built.

I'm having a hard time believing it would cost more to build the doors myself, given my labor and time is free. The prices I HAVE gotten for wood, carriage house looking doors, is very expensive.

What can I say... I'm just a DIY kind of guy. To me, it's rewarding to work on certain elements of the house myself. The house has had a long history of people who have added their own work and time into the house. We decided we wanted to be the next to add our time and devotion to the house.

I'm not sure why I'm getting all the resistance for building the doors myself. Maybe I'm in the wrong place... Is there another part of the forum I should have posted this thread?

I agree. The bottom rail of my solid wood door has some rot as well. I don't see anything wrong with replacing the bottom rail on that panel. Mine is 16x7 and good wood that length is hard to find. Pine just ain't my choice. I'd rather replace the rotted rail and keep to old door intact. I dislike metal roll up garage doors.

I say keep to the old style as much as possible.

And don't be so thin skinned. I read everything two-three times and have learned over the years that nothing is personal. Please keep us updated on your adventure.

 

[scootermcrad]

MORE great input. THANK YOU! Awesome tip on the Latex paint. I will definitely use oil-based exterior paint for the project.

I have a nice table saw and was about to pickup a nice Dado blade set, have a nice router, and also a biscuit joiner. My wife (who rules) has also been itching for us to get a nice planer. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like if I got creative enough, I could pull this off with the table saw and router. I'm not seeing anything THAT complicated where I would need any additional specialty tools. If these doors were going to be stained and super detailed, this would be a very different project.

We bought a house of which I will be restoring several pieces of the wood work, including having to rebuild at least one of the round-top original windows. I'm also getting ready to build a 12x16 shed (which I'm going to do a thread on) that will mimic the style of the house with it's steep pitch and interesting windows. I will have to build carriage doors for this shed. I've seen several techniques for successfully building carriage doors that seem to carry over to the overhead door construction. I'm very much interested in learning more carpentry, so this is right up my alley.

Here's an interesting method for actual carriage doors that caught my interest, on Fine Woodworking's site:

http://bcove.me/f8m3aavv

http://www.finehomebuilding.com/ite...ay-to-build-carriage-house-style-garage-doors

 

[scootermcrad]

On a side note... I'm setting up an appointment for an overhead door place to come out, who are reps for a place that makes very nice wood "carriage house" style overhead doors. It's free to get an estimate, so I may as well compare the prices. I'm not optimistic on their prices.

AND... I did a search for Stile and Rail construction and this cross section of an overhead door construction came up....

Can't see how this couldn't be done with a router and table saw.

 

[vintage56]

any update on this?
I'm crazy enough to tackle this kind of torture too.
I have two street-facing, single doors on my older home and the single door on my backyard shop that I'd love to build some vintage doors to replace the abused, super-cheap mickey mouse junk from PO's. I'm not in an immediate need, so a long labor of love, repaying my faithful shop/garage, is my idea of an ideal project.

 

[bill wallace]

My suggestion is do one segment to see how it goes. Your table saw with a few cutters will do all the work you need. One suggestion is on the bottom rail use a piece of treated lumber. This is not a very hard thing to build from a wood working standpoint & as long as your measurements are accurate it is a good project to learn on. One suggestion is get a good set of corner clamps to keep things square when assembling the segments. Just do it.

 

[SARG]

Having little ambition and marginal skills ... I paid $2000 to have a pair of insulated metal doors installed last fall. These were the last of six doors I've updated replacing the wood versions over five years.
I'd never go back to wood.

 

[reader2580]

A guy I know built his own garage door out of wood. I think it was rail and stile with raised panels. It apparently needs to be refinished just about every year. I personally think it looked pretty bad because you could see all kinds of defects in the finish from not being refinished often enough.

He is a really good woodworker and the door looks really good other than the finish issues. He spent a lot of money on the house including lots of IPE trim.

 

[jeffd_atlanta]

here is my plan:

garage door project
Item # description
1 get existing dimensions of panels
2 determine existing glass dimensions, are they different than wood insert panels?
3 determine type of wood for frame and insert panels
4 determine what type of nail or screw to secure tenon inside mortice, middle stile tenon
5 determine correct type of adhesive for mortice and tenon, middle stiles insert panels
6 determine door hardware required, rollers, hinges, cable connection, bottom rubber strip
7 determine correct type of paint, color
8 determine how deep of a mortice you can make with router bits
9 determine dimensions of stiles(including tenons), Rails and panels, add proper dimensions to equal existing over all hieght, width and depth
10 consider adding 1/16th to 1/8th inch to insert panel width and height to allow gap inside dado cuts between stiles and rails
11 consider height of router edging as depth of dado cuts for insert panels
12 determine gaps between panels
13 panel width and height must include dado depths which equal router cut height
14 make drawings, calculate individual dimensions to add to totals, including if glass panel is different
15 determin quantity of end stiles, middle stiles and insert panels
16 make materials and tools list
17 cut insert panels
18 Rail, cut stock to required dimensions, take into account cut out portion of panel overlap when put into place on door
19 end stiles, cut stock length including required tenon length, see maximum router bit mortice depth
20 middle stiles cut stock including two depths of dado cut
21 end stiles, cut tenon (cut all end stiles wide sides at same time, then end sides same time)
22 middle stiles, cut tenon (cut all middle stiles wide sides at same time, then end sides same time)
23 Rail, cut overlap that will exist between panels, identify by marking top rail, bottom rail, left and right sides for matching up
24 end stiles, dado width equal to depth of panel along appropriate side
25 middle stiles, dado width equal to depth of panel along appropriate side
26 create jig to mortice rail ends
27 test jig with scrap wood, verify dimensions, insert cut stile for fit
28 use end stiles to mark test scrap wood and rail ends
29 mortice joints at ends
30 square and clean mortice with chisels
31 test mortice hole by inserting end stile into mortice for fit
32 Dado appropriate side length with depth of insert panel
33 sand insert panels taking care of edges that go into dado cuts
34 sand rail areas where stiles will meet
35 assemble with no glue, consider adding 1/16th to 1/8th inch gap within dado cuts for insert panels, clamp
36 measure that all items line up and space evenly with insert panels in place in even spacing, mark placement of middle stiles with pencil
37 remove top rail, remove insert panels
38 replace top rail, align middle stiles with marked placements, clamp
39 use router to make internal edges
40 chisel out corners of router cuts on exterior
41 sand frame and router cuts
42 disassemble, apply glue to tenon and mortice, glue on middle stiles tenons, place insert panels between stiles, clamp
43 assemble left stile into mortice with glue in place, then using tube to squeeze glue into dado cut of rail and end stile
44 use tube to squeeze glue into left side of a middle stile and on tenon going into bottom rail, place
45 follow process out to right end observing marked placements of middle stiles
46 place glue on tops of end tenons, inside mortice of top rail, squeeze glue into dado cuts where insert panels meet top rail
47 press top rail onto end stile tenon, middle stile tenons and insert panels, clamp and let dry
48 use nail or screws through mortice / tenon joint, middle stiles - take consideration of hardware placement, allow glue to dry
49 remove existing panels and hardware, use existing panels to provide guides for holes for hardware
50 apply coats of kilz and paint to exterior, sides, tops and bottoms
51 install hardware that can be installed before putting panels in place in door, including bottom rubber strip
52 measure weight of all wood and hardware, determine spring replacement
53 look up spring diameter, lenght not including ends and suspended weight
54 acquire spring and put in place before door panel installation
55 assemble panels to door, adjust hardware for proper gaps and alignment
56 test spring loading as it is guided up rail using garage door opener

 

[kbs2244]

When I am building/repairing a big flat thing I build a jig to keep all the different parts the same size and shape.
You do need a work top that is bigger than the project.
So a 16 foot door would be two 4x8 sheets with a 12 inch gape between them.
Then just 1x2s nailed to true the corners and a few along the long side to keep every thing just right.
I rebuilt 26 AL clad storm windows wit treated wood this way.
They slipped right back where they came from.

 

[richtersrodz]

I've got full cedar wood doors on my house. Used the same garage door guy on both of my houses, I loved them so much. They are full cedar, 3 layers of 1x4's, and cost me about $1K each, with $300 install each. They are soo heavy, you have to replace the weak one spring, with two heavy duty springs when installed. But when wound up right, open just like any other door.