Nicer brakets for the garagdoor and the motor...???

[Chris]

Both the garagedoor and the motor to open it with are mounted to the ceiling with perforated metal angles .

Have someone fixed this in a nicer way? Pictures?

 

[bmwpower]

If you have a metal building, see this just posted:

http://www.garagejunkies.net/showpost.php?p=37483&postcount=62

Subscribed. I have a stick built structure and would like to see how to get rid of these things...

 

[nova65ss]

I'd be nervous a weld would break over time and the door would come crashing to the ground. I like the angle iron ususally they run a horizontal piece to the joist and drop from there so it's not necessary to sheetrock around it. It looks like someone didn't have enough angle iron with them and made do with piecing stuff together Def. much cleaner now though

Jimmy

 

[Luckydevil]

You could just get the perforated pieces powder coated to blend in better. Possibly white to match the ceiling?

You could even paint the metal pieces without having to remove them.

 

[tubeman]

what about using unistrut?

 

[Chris]

Painting was a good ide....

 

[W-Cummins]

Mine are so short that I didn't use the 45 deg side brace. It dosn't seem to be a problem as they are very stiff I guess I could have replaced the punched stuff with a short piece of angle iron but I'm not sure what that would get me.

 

[Stuart in MN]

This is what I did in my garage. It's just a vertical piece of 2x4; I beveled the bottom end on the table saw to make it look a little nicer. The door uses a torsion spring, so the tail ends of the rails really have no load or strain on them, other than holding the door when it's open. They've been in place for nearly ten years now without any problems.

 

[REFLEXX]

Stuart! Those are nicer than mine. I'm jealous.

Nova. The reason that my original "angle iron" was composed of several pieces was to make it easier to sheetrock around. I would have unbolted the lower half of the angles, drywalled up there and have just a few inches of angle sticking out. I would then bolt on th remaining lengths of angle and track. Did I explain that correctly?

Then I just decided to attach the track to the steel beams and have no holes in my drywall at all.

I used 3/16" steel plate mig welded to the truss. That bracket can hold MY weight. It shouldn't go anywhere for a long time!

 

[dragginbalz]

Reflexx, you inspired me to go replace mine. I about 30 mins in the garage and this is what I have, simple but will be much easier to drywall around!

old

new

t

 

[REFLEXX]

draggin! Much nicer.

Perhaps this is the start of a trend! Or liability lawsuits, depending on how you look at it.

 

[Trooper]

Draggin,
Do you have the pipe welded to a plate on top where it is bolted to the truss. What I'm looking at in the pictures indicates you don't have anything to control the side to side wobble. The tracts need to be stable both vertically and horizontally. One bolt top and one bolt bottom won't accomplish this.

Trooper

 

[dragginbalz]

I do have a plate welded to the top with 2 bolts. The thing is sturdy as all get out! I can twist the channel before the tube thinks about moving.

t

 

[Chris]

Did I start a trend here where all wants to make better looking brackets??
Lots of ideas....the tube thing was looking good....mayby I have to copy that...

 

[kenfath]

The person who installed my son's two garage doors used 1/2" thinwall conduit (EMT) for the supports and braces. His truck had a mounted vise and punch. After cutting the EMT to length, he would flatten the ends by approx. 2-inches then punch a bolt hole in the flattened ends. In about one-half minute he would have a brace ready for installation. The diagonal braces were made by bending the flattened ends as needed. The end result was an economical, attractive and sturdy support.

 

[ddawg16]

Draggin.....considering what that ceiling looks like....your original supports looked fantastic........

 

[nate379]

Mine will be some 3/16" angle iron once I get my welder unpacked. The super thin things they put up there are a joke. 20ft stick of angle iron was around $30, but it's all rems from another project I did.

Also going to try and raise it up a bit, though I'm not sure I can because it's close to the lights. 8ft door with a 9ft ceiling.

 

[ArthurPE]

I used bar stock aluminum, 'knee' bent...

look closely in the fist pic
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38053

 

[Falcon67]

I can't live without my perforated angle brackets at the ends of the door tracks. Where else would I hang all those little BS painted parts to dry???

 

[tcianci]

I used 2 pieces of un-punched Uni Strut welded 90 degrees to each other. They bolt through two layers of 3/4 mdf into the ceiling joists. The upper layer of MDF is about 2 inches bigger in both directions than the 2nd layer so in essence I have a stepped block, the flage of which is where I screwed the blueboard. The blueboard butts up against the edge of the 2nd layer and eliminates all the snots you usually see around the angle irons hanging out of the plaster job because there is no plaster or joint compound on the surface of the MDF. The double thickness works out fine because the first layer is the same thickness as the strapping on the ceiling joists and the second layer is slightly proud of the plaster job.The strut is painted flat black and looks nice and clean and the MDF gave me a nice clean edge to board up to. I will try to post a picture and a drawing if I can figure out how.

 

[ddawg16]

Ok....who's bright idea was it to talk about garage door brackets? Oh yea, Chris......

Well, lucky for you, I had my opener and brackets down so I could install the drywall in the ceiling....and since you did accuratly point out that the standard brackets are kind of ugly....and I had this sheet of 10g stainless laying around that I was tired of banging my shin on....and we have a nice 10' brake at work.....what the heck....

This is the result.....still need to do one for the actual motor....

 

[tcianci]

Way cool!!!