Question Sliding Wall for Samples

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mbboston

mbboston

CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2
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Mar 12, 2010
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Boston + Beverly, MA
We are in the process of creating a sliding wall for samples. Sprinklers are right above it, so it would need to be suspended or below ceiling level for 8". Could anyone recommend hardware that works well? If you have any photos of you would like to share, I would appreciate it.

Thanks
 
Be sure to use steel track like those shown. Mine are aluminum, and they have needed to be reinforced/repaired several times. My panels are made of MDF and are quite heavy when laden with corner samples. Wish I could wave a magic wand and have the hardware replaced. It needs doing, but is going to be a PIA... at some point.
:kaffeetrinker_2: Rick
 
Thanks, for the idea. It looks good and it could carry up to lbs.
 
We had sliding doors for over 20 years and loved them even thought they didn't alway move easily. We are now redoing them in our new shop.

In our old store we had a soffit hanging down (see attached photos) that hid the tracks on top and a base on bottom that did not hide the tracks. The front and the sides of the soffit were made of plywood. The architect specified a lot of support from above and it was very really strong but I don't remember what they used. We are having a new soffit built in our new store this week and I can let you know after it is done what the contractor did.

In the photos below each panel was made out of 3/4" plywood and was 42" wide x 85" high. We changed hardware twice on it and were not happy with the ease of moving the doors. We took one off before we moved and weighed it and it came in at over 100 lbs. The tracks or hardware used (done twice) just could not support the weight.

A few years ago we did another section for Custom Corner Frames (see photo below). Different hardware and tracks were used and it worked very well. The panels were 7/8" MDF 35" wide x 90" high. We had a sign that is not shown in the photo that covered the tracks on top and there were no tracks on the bottom. The hardware use for this was the 111 tracks and the 1020 hangers from Johnson hardware seen here:

http://www.jhusa.net/111pdbp.aspx

We will be using the same tracks in our new shop but will be using the 1025 ball bearing hangers for the heavier doors. The biggest challenge we will have now is lighting behind the soffit as the sliding doors will be 4 feet deep!

Chavie
 

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Alternatives?

CAGallery said:
We had sliding doors for over 20 years and loved them even thought they didn't alway move easily...
Click to expand...

Chavie,

I hope you find a good solution, and I realize that many folks use and love sliding panels for displaying moulding corner samples.

Personally, I have never liked them, for multiple reasons...

- I think they often look a bit "home made" and unprofessional

- Too many panel designs swing, or release from the tracks or operate/move herky jerky. (most of these issues are due to construction and/or choice of materials)

- If moulding samples are positioned incorrectly they can sometimes get knocked off or jammed and damaged by a another layer/panel.

- There exist always an uncertain feeling that you have "exposed" all the samples in layers behind...a bit of a never-never land feeling.

I honestly prefer the appearance and ease of Space Savers (Rotating triangular columns).

7531_172887950794_94465990794_4163329_1470296_n.jpg


Good Luck.

John
 
John,

I actually didn't start this thread - was just responding to someone who did.

Before we moved we looked into those Space Savers to explore our options. They were just too costly for the amount of frames we show to start from scratch. For someone who doesn't have any system yet the costs may be similar. The Space Savers is a finished system whereas with the sliding doors you have to buy plywood or mdf for the doors, fabric to cover the doors, tracks, hardware, support on top as the doors as heavy, labor etc. Since we already had the door system and were happy with it for over 20 years aside from the fact that they were heavy to push, we just moved with the doors. Now we only have to replace the tracks with better tracks and ball bearing hangers to make it easier to pull/push.

I have seen many sliding door systems and some look home made and some don't. What we liked about it was the way we were able to organize and divide the frame samples and were able to have a large selection in a relatively small space. We still haven't decided how we will divide and organize our samples in the new shop. Right now we are still dealing with construction and haven't yet built the soffit or installed the tracks so we still have time to think about it.

And what is wrong with Never Never Land? Sounds good to me!
 
CAGallery said:
We had sliding doors for over 20 years and loved them even thought they didn't alway move easily. We are now redoing them in our new shop.

In our old store we had a soffit hanging down (see attached photos) that hid the tracks on top and a base on bottom that did not hide the tracks. The front and the sides of the soffit were made of plywood. The architect specified a lot of support from above and it was very really strong but I don't remember what they used. We are having a new soffit built in our new store this week and I can let you know after it is done what the contractor did.

In the photos below each panel was made out of 3/4" plywood and was 42" wide x 85" high. We changed hardware twice on it and were not happy with the ease of moving the doors. We took one off before we moved and weighed it and it came in at over 100 lbs. The tracks or hardware used (done twice) just could not support the weight.

A few years ago we did another section for Custom Corner Frames (see photo below). Different hardware and tracks were used and it worked very well. The panels were 7/8" MDF 35" wide x 90" high. We had a sign that is not shown in the photo that covered the tracks on top and there were no tracks on the bottom. The hardware use for this was the 111 tracks and the 1020 hangers from Johnson hardware seen here:

http://www.jhusa.net/111pdbp.aspx

We will be using the same tracks in our new shop but will be using the 1025 ball bearing hangers for the heavier doors. The biggest challenge we will have now is lighting behind the soffit as the sliding doors will be 4 feet deep!

Chavie
Click to expand...

Chavie,

Your wall looks amazing. We were thinking of putting a channel on the bottom, as a guide and tracks on the top. Thanks!
 
We had sliding panels in our store for about 6 years, and they worked perfectly. I hung 12-ft. galvanized steel barn door tracks with double-wheel trolleys. The trolleys were attached to 48x96 black Gatorfoam panels 1/2" thick, to which I had glued Velcro-friendly carpeting. The panels were lightweight and easy to work with, but supported the weight of the moulding samples easily. Each panel weighed about 80 lbs when full.

I took down the set up for two reasons:
1. Almost half of the samples were hidden from casual view. To see them all, you have to slide the panels.

2. 3000 samples was just more than I wanted to offer. Now we have about 2000 samples on 7 of the same Gatorfoam panels attached directly to the gallery walls, plus two free-standing spinner displays.

If anyone is interested in using these barn door tracks, let me know. You're welcome to them. I'd really like to find a good home for them. All the parts are still like-new.
 
John, this is a beautiful solution but addition to high cost, this system doesn't appear to accommodate closed corner samples well. We did look into this solution and it is slick. Thanks.
 
Jim Miller said:
We had sliding panels in our store for about 6 years, and they worked perfectly. I hung 12-ft. galvanized steel barn door tracks with double-wheel trolleys. The trolleys were attached to 48x96 black Gatorfoam panels 1/2" thick, to which I had glued Velcro-friendly carpeting. The panels were lightweight and easy to work with, but supported the weight of the moulding samples easily. Each panel weighed about 80 lbs when full.

I took down the set up for two reasons:
1. Almost half of the samples were hidden from casual view. To see them all, you have to slide the panels.

2. 3000 samples was just more than I wanted to offer. Now we have about 2000 samples on 7 of the same Gatorfoam panels attached directly to the gallery walls, plus two free-standing spinner displays.

If anyone is interested in using these barn door tracks, let me know. You're welcome to them. I'd really like to find a good home for them. All the parts are still like-new.
Click to expand...

Jim,

I may be very, very interested. I need to talk to our "wall committee". Thanks!
 
I have had my sliding doors for almost 18 years now and they still move as nicely as when I first hung them. I used hollow core doors and hardware for sliding closet doors. No problem with them ever jumping off or the hardware breaking. Everything was bought at Home Despot.
I wrapped the doors with Velcro fabric. Brass handles on the edges to move them and teflon strips at the bottom front and back of the doors where the doors slide keeps the fabric from catching on the wood of the groove on the base and makes for a smoother movement .

The system is hung from a box beam style header that is attached to the walls around it. A box beam construction helps make the overall beam very rigid due to the internal ribs every 6" or so.

This is the same type of construction found on some highway overpasses. One can span a rather large distance without intermediate support with this method.

I think the biggest reason other systems don't work and are so heavy is that the panels are too wide. Plus they are usually made of 3/4" plywood or MDF. Mine are 30" wide hollow core doors that hold 3 rows of samples.

I will try to get a few shots of it today and post them.
 
framah said:
I have had my sliding doors for almost 18 years now and they still move as nicely as when I first hung them. I used hollow core doors and hardware for sliding closet doors. No problem with them ever jumping off or the hardware breaking. Everything was bought at Home Despot.
I wrapped the doors with Velcro fabric. Brass handles on the edges to move them and teflon strips at the bottom front and back of the doors where the doors slide keeps the fabric from catching on the wood of the groove on the base and makes for a smoother movement .

The system is hung from a box beam style header that is attached to the walls around it. A box beam construction helps make the overall beam very rigid due to the internal ribs every 6" or so.

This is the same type of construction found on some highway overpasses. One can span a rather large distance without intermediate support with this method.

I think the biggest reason other systems don't work and are so heavy is that the panels are too wide. Plus they are usually made of 3/4" plywood or MDF. Mine are 30" wide hollow core doors that hold 3 rows of samples.

I will try to get a few shots of it today and post them.
Click to expand...

Thanks, please post photos! I would love to see how it looks.
 


This last one shows how the header is attached to the top of the walls.
 
This is beautiful, I love gray background, frames tend to look more realistic and the wall is not too "heavy". Unfortunately, my husband was determined to have black walls.
 
Jim Miller said:
We had sliding panels in our store for about 6 years, and they worked perfectly. I hung 12-ft. galvanized steel barn door tracks with double-wheel trolleys. The trolleys were attached to 48x96 black Gatorfoam panels 1/2" thick, to which I had glued Velcro-friendly carpeting. The panels were lightweight and easy to work with, but supported the weight of the moulding samples easily. Each panel weighed about 80 lbs when full.
Click to expand...

I read about this several times on the Grumble and it sounded so wonderful and lightweight. We were thinking of doing the doors we are adding in our new store this way. But it wouldn't make sense to have two different tracks - one for the other plywood doors and one for this lightweight system.

Framah said:
I used hollow core doors and hardware for sliding closet doors.... I think the biggest reason other systems don't work and are so heavy is that the panels are too wide. Plus they are usually made of 3/4" plywood or MDF. Mine are 30" wide hollow core doors that hold 3 rows of samples.
Click to expand...
Hollow core doors also sounded great but didn't come in the size we needed -- 42" x 85" high. That size worked best for us in our space and allowed us to display either 4 rows of frames or to insert framed samples in between. And it worked for all the years but just seemed to get heavier .... or maybe we just got older!

mbboston said:
I love gray background, frames tend to look more realistic and the wall is not too "heavy".
Click to expand...


We regret doing the green but 21 years ago green was the "it" color! It sort of established us as the place that was up to date in design. Right now we didn't want to invest in recovering 24 doors with new fabric so we decided to go with a neutral gray/cream on the new doors and alternate rows. When things quiet down and we are up to it we will recover the rest of the doors.

If I learned something from this it is to go neutral with things that will stay for a long time and to use trendy colors on accents and things that can easily be changed.

I will try to get some pictures when they do the soffit / support for the doors. They are supposed to be building it on Friday but our contractor says a lot and does little. But that is a whole other story!
 
We regret doing the green but 21 years ago green was the "it" color! It sort of established us as the place that was up to date in design.

Don't regret it, your gold leaf looks much better and sells better on darker background. There is nothing wrong having different color walls. I have my black frames on white wall, Velcro is stapled on plaster.
 
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