I was going through my old images the other day and came across this picture of the first prototype barn door hardware I developed, five years ago. I have learned from every generation of hardware that I have worked on.
The big takeaway from this version was that METAL WHEELS ARE REALLY LOUD!!!!! I had thought metal wheels would be great, boy was I wrong. When I set this up it howled, so it was of no use in a bedroom or bathroom as you could hear it on the other side of my house.
As this was a prototype I also had some nylon wheels made, which worked much better and were quiet. This version also did not have bearings so it did not survive the number of openings and closings.
These days Viba Barn Doors & Hardware uses an industrial nylon wheel that can survive over 20,000 opening/closing cycles, and we have added soft close to the system to ensure there are no slamming sounds when the hardware closes.
So when it comes time to buy your hardware, get it from someone with experience, because my learning will save you from having a bad hardware experience.
I received an email the other day where my worst nightmare unfolded. The key section was:
"I had installed a barn door with the hardware from one of the big box stores. Last week, my two year old daughter grabbed the handle and the door came off the track and almost fell on her - thank God it hit one of the bulkheads in the basement and got stopped. I realized that the hardware for our barn door did not include anti jump blocks or disks. The big box store by my house no longer carries that model door and they do not sell the anti jump blocks or disks. I'm hoping you can help me out."
We were able to point the guy in the right direction to get some replacement parts.
Viba only sells safe products, our standard hardware has five separate sets of safety features that make sure your door is safe. They are: Anti-jump blocks, end stops, soft close actuators, soft closing hardware, and bottom guides.
So, my post for today is in 3 parts.
1 Make sure you purchase your hardware from someone who is committed to ensuring you have a stylish AND safe experience with it. Important to this is someone who has written and pictorial instructions.
2 READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! Seriously, we have invested a ton of time and re-writes to ensure that our instructions are easy to follow and give you the best and safest result possible.
3 When in doubt, stop! Re-read the instructions, and if you still have questions send us an email or call us. We want your experience to be a good one.
I wanted to create a new product that would allow people to express their individual artistic moods in a barn door in a creative way and would also work in more standard fashions. Thus the new Viba Hardware flat panel Art Door.
If you haven't guessed by my previous blog posts, I love superhero movies, my favorites being the Captain America series. The doors feature a Captain America and Bucky (The Winter Soldier) theme that reveals itself as the doors are pulled open.
I put these doors together over about 5 hours to show case how a relatively standard panel door can be turned into a creative masterpiece. Most of that time was spent masking out the stars and stripes on both doors. The Bucky door stripes were especially challenging.
By assembling the door after painting it is far easier to tape up the panels and do a multi layer paint job on them. The doors have a pine frame with 3/8ths MDF panels and are assembled very much like our standard barn door.
These doors feature a new come-along bypass barn door hardware on a single rail that saves huge amounts of space, which I needed to remove the bookcase beside these and eventually fill the space with a new TV. This product will be launching in roughly 6 weeks.
As a note, I can't sell these specific doors to you, they are for my own use. Disney and Marvel own the rights to both Captain America and the Winter Soldier.
If you are interested in creating your own set of art doors please contact me at brad.elkins@vibahardware.com and I can help you out.
Now I need to stop writing about these doors as "I can do this all day".
Brad
When Viba Hardware started offering doors 3 years ago, we had a very standard size offering. That ended pretty quickly.
Our current average size of door is 84X40 inches, but that is the average only. We regularly do massive doors for clients looking to solve specific problems. I have posted a couple of pictures below of recent client doors we have done. The first is for a 6 foot by 80 inch door that will be used to cover over a large opening between rooms in a basement. The client had a 5' 5" opening with lots of wall space on one side, but none on the other,and didn't know what could be done. When they contacted me, I immediately recommended a larger door sliding in the one direction to give them the privacy they wanted.
The main point of this post is DON'T THINK THAT A DOOR THAT BIG CAN'T BE MADE! We do doors up to 96 inches high and 76 inches wide on a regular basis, and pricing for those doors is always available on our online store.
Until next time remember- Do-it-yourself or Do Not. There is no Try-it-Yourself.
Brad
