ROLLERS for sliding doors?

[DonW]

My wooden custom trawler has sliding teak doors in the pilot house. They are heavy and do not slide well. Rather than treat her like a fishing boat and put grease in the tracks, I'd like to add hardware under*each door to make it roll or at least slide better.

I've done a minor search with marginal results and decided to ask here. what do the manufacturers use?*Nothing like a recommended solution that is known to work!

[Tidahapah]

Don,
I have a timber cruiser and my wheelhouse doors slide on a brass strip with 2 brass rollers set into the bottom of the door frame.
Simple but effective.
The same can be done using a nylon strip and nylon rollers.
My mate has hung his doors on rollers and I will check with hime on what brand yjey are and get back to you.

Benn

[wingspar]

On my old CHB 34 I removed the old rusted rollers and install a 1/4 piece of nylon in the door channel. Worked ok for me.

Dave

[LarryW]

My two pilot house doors slide on nylon on steel so far they work good. I feel like if they slide to easy then you have them sliding back and forth with the waves.

[DonW]

Thanks everyone!

I'm going to add nylon strips to the bottom of the doors. They already slide in an aluminum channel and I can see that adding nylon would be pretty simple. I expect will reduce friction considerably.

[FF]

I expect will reduce friction considerably.


Good , but be ready to install some way of securing the door , or it may slam closed at any wave.

OUR WAY" is a dutch door , keeps the cat in too.

FF

[Dougcole]

I second the response on the nylon strip.* I had this same issue and installed a strip of PTFE?....something like that, a hard black plastic that another board member was nice enough to send me.* FF will probably know what it is.

I*ripped it on my table saw, set the screw heads well down into it so they don't protrude and screwed it down into the track.

Works really great.* One of the cheapest, easiest and most satisfying repairs I've done on my boat.* I was always cursing that hard to close door.

[FF]

Plastic out in the sunshine (even hidden by a door ) is still a short tetm patch.

We have installed sailboat genoa track ,1 inch or 1 1/4 inch on the deck, and used slide cars (that do have buried plastic) to mount the door.

Hack off the part that would hold a shakle for a block , and simply drill a SINGLE hole for a screw. So the car can slide and wiggle a bit , as the track can be curved in plane to tighten the door on closing.

FF

[Dougcole]

After 3 1/2 years in the hot Florida sun, mine is still perfect. I may have some left around here. Let me know if you want it and I can ship you some.* Will pay back the Karma from the guy who sent it to me.

Doug

[supertramp]

Y think the nylon stripe its a good choice, the door will not move to rapid when the vessel is underway

Norbert

[2bucks]

I have rollers on my side doors. I have catches on the doors to hold them all the way open. I also have rubber wedges to hold them part way. You see, I like to sit on the helm seat and brace my hand on the forward part of the door opening. You only have to forget to move it once when crossing a Bayliner wake to learn that the door needs to be blocked. Unless you are a slower learner than me, and I doubt that you are.

Ken

[DonW]

You would not believe what you could not find here on the west coast of Thailand. Outside of Phuket I mean.

Based on feedback here, what I finally did was cut 4 strips from a nylon (?) cutting board and carefully install two on the underside of each door. The tracks are aluminum channels. It helped considerably but did not get truly easy until I did in fact add grease to those channels.

Now I'm gonna go look for some big waves and see what they do.

[Max Simmons]

Hey Don, do you have pics of the construction of your boat?