The hinges are laid out, marked, cut and screws pre drilled and installed. This is just a test fit, there's more work to be done before permanent installation of the hinges.
Fine Tuning the Barn Door
Flushing up an exterior board after attaching it to the stile. I glued the outermost boards to their respective stiles, which further improves the stability of the door (and looks much better than seeing a ton of fasteners).
White Cedar Ship-Lapped Boards for the Door
Here are the boards for the door, after milling the ship-lap joinery. This material is quartersawn white cedar, almost completely free of any defects and beautifully straight-grained. Really nice to work.
A Barn Door, Continued
Here is a partial view of the frame (made of 2 vertical stiles and 3 horizontal rails). This is where the middle rail joins to the hinge side stile with epoxied threaded rod. On the far side of the frame you can see the first ship lapped board has been affixed to the stile. One huge advantage of making the frame first, and then attaching the finish boards to the frame is that I can fit the light frame to the opening rather than trying to wrestle a heavy door back and forth to fine tune the fit.
Threaded Rod and Epoxy, Not Your Typical Joint
Back to the barn-ish door today. Instead of using just cleats and braces, I'm building a stile and rail frame, to which the 5 boards will be attached. The 3 horizontal rails join to the vertical stiles with 1/4" threaded rod, epoxied into both members. It's fairly easy to do and makes for a rock-solid frame that will easily resist racking. Here's the bottom rail with threaded rod epoxied in place.