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Turkey, Ankara
1 Level
668 Review
45 Karma

Review on Upgrade Your Home With DIYHD'S 6.6FT Rustic Black Sliding Barn Door Hardware Track Kit Featuring Soft Close Operation! by Joshua Sharma

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Good product, but you need tools and imagination to install.

The design and operation of this mechanism is good. Instructions are in millimeters so you will have to convert to fractional inches. There are numerous converters on the web for this. When properly measured to 1/16th inch accuracy everything will operate at the proper clearances. There are a couple of issues that I had to deal with however.The materials include plastic anchors for the lag screws used to mount the slide rail in a plaster or wallboard. This type of mount will never last with something as heavy as a solid core wood door. You absolutely need to find a stud for each of the 4 lag screws. You will need to drill additional holes in the rail if your studs don't fall on 16" center, which is not difficult with an electric drill and a decent drill bit. You may need to cut the rail to fit on small walls. I used a hand grinder for this and it cuts in about 20 seconds.Depending on your door size, you may need to slide the stops onto the rail before installing the lag screws. In my case the left stop (door open position) needed to be on the right side of the leftmost lag screw.The surface area of the mounting standoff where it contacts the wall is not sufficient to remain stable on plaster or wallboard. Once the weight of the door bears on the rail, the standoff has a tendency to bite into the wallboard at the bottom edge, causing the rail to sag. I solved this as follows. I used a hole saw to drill out 1-1/4" holes in the wallboard where the standoffs go. I have 5/8" wall board. With the same hole saw I cut plugs from a piece of 5/8" in wood (spare chunk of door jamb in my case). I applied glue to the back of each plug, inserted into the holes and then attached the rail. This way the standoffs are binding against solid wood instead of wallboard. Using this approach there is no sag and the whole assembly is quite solid. To finish, back fill any voids with a little joint compound, sand and paint.The kit includes a slide control pin that screws into the floor which requires a substantial channel to be cut out of the bottom of the door. I did this on one door and it required 2 passed with a router. I was not happy with the feel of this solution once installed. On the second door I installed a u-shaped metal channel just slightly wider that the door thickness. The door slides inside the channel and requires no routing. I glued some felt inside the channel to prevent it from marring the door as it slides.

Pros
  • Stylish Yet Functional
Cons
  • The kit may require additional purchases, such as door handles or locks, to complete the installation