Did some more work on the doors this past weekend, unfortunately only one day's worth, and was able to completely finish their construction. They are pretty heavy, but as long as I use proper hinges, the added strength, durability, insulating quality, and weather resistance should be worth it.
A lot of the machine supply places I've been looking at for hinges are ridiculously overpriced. Luckily, I have a buddy who does tons of custom metalwork and makes his own ornate railings and gates, and he has even fashioned a pair of hinges for 40 foot tall solid wood doors. I am gonna take a trip to his shop and we'll make some nice hinges for not too much money.
So the doors are built around the frames I described in my last post. For the front cladding, I used texture 1-11 with roughly 4" wide grooves. It's attached via lots of construction adhesive (liquid nails, good stuff) and some 1.25" exterior screws. The construction adhesive I used all around will actually add a ton of strength to the doors, as well as sealing them from water and weather. Then, I used some 2" thick foam insulation (R12 insulating factor... nice, and a little pricey) to fill the door. I used construction adhesive to attach it to the back of the front T-1-11, so behind it will be a roughly 1.5" air gap, which will help even more for insulating. Then, the inside cladding is just 1/4" finished luon, attached via construction adhesive and 1.25" finish nails.
Here is the doors as built this weekend.
Mid-Build:
All done:
You can see the T-1-11 Pretty well on the underside of this door from the side. I guess I forgot to take photos of the outsides of the doors.
I have all the rest of planned out exactly, except for the hinges.
One door will lock to the other upon closing via a gate latch, like this:
Then, the doors will lock in place via a cane bolt / plunge latch down into the concrete. I have the bit, and a hammer drill. Easy. It is sort of like this:
There will be wipers along the bottom of each door to seal against the ground, and a wider one mounted in the center to cover the gap between the doors.
Rubber weatherstripping will be tacked all around the door frame on the building in such a way that as the door is pulled shut the last couple inches, all the weatherstripping will be lightly compressed, and seal the garage.
I plan to find rigid casters with a slight offset from their mounting plate that will be attached such that as the door is pulled shut the last couple inches, a lot of the load will be taken off the hinges and supported by the casters.
Now, just have to paint them (using black exterior paint on the front and sides... the inside will be white interior paint) and hang them. I'm going out there tomorrow to paint the doors at the very least.