How to make a sliding door for a chicken coop?

[foxypoproxy]

We would like sliding doors for a chicken coop.
The door would be a 2ft square all around.
we want to know what we need to buy to make it a door we attach to it slide to the side so we can open and close it easily.
Thanks any help is appreciated!

oh crap i put this in the wrong place ....can someone move it to the coops threads ._. sorry and thank you!

 

[teach1rusl]

You'll need material for the track - any type of thin board can be used - you'll need two (about double door height) wider pieces (maybe 2") for the outer part of the track, and two narrower pieces (maybe an inch?) for the inner part of the track.
You'll need whatever you're using for the door itself, plywood, lexan (good choice) or thick plexiglass...something along those lines.
You'll need either pulleys or really just smallish eye bolts will work (to run the pulley cable through to open/close your door.
You'll need thin cable (my brother used a type of rope - but I'd worry about it fraying).
You'll need a clip so you can clip the door open.

 

[Edwards' East of Eden]

Wouldn't you just ... cut a 2' square of plywood and trim out the edges with 1x2 furring strips? Then, put a slightly smaller opening in the wall where you want the door, and place it so that you can make tracks above and below it for the door to slide in.

I'd make the tracks by ... hmmm. I'd stack two pieces of 1x2, 4' long, and on top of that stack I'd put a 1x4, also 4' long. I'd line up the long edges down one side. Then I'd run some Gulf Wax down the inside edge of the 1x2s, and fasten the tracks to the wall so that the door would fasten between them.

Kind of like, from the side ...

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The exclamation points down the left are your wall. The Gulf Wax would be above the dashes on the bottom, and below the dashes on the top. And the tracks would be 1/2" or so further than 2' apart.

The 1x2s are actually 3/4" thick, so ... as long as your plywood wasn't more than 3/4" thick, it would fit through. Otherwise, you'd need to adjust.

I may be doing this the hard way, but it's a starting point.

 

[ScottyHOMEy]

Not sure if I posted it here or not before, but I may have an elegant solution for you.

The last holdup on getting my new coop done while the chicks were rapidly outgrowing their disposable brooder arrangements was what size window I was going to find, so as to be able to frame things in before laying the siding on the south side.

In order of preference, I had been focused on 1) a tilt-in sash arrangement or 2) a regular double-hung sash, both sashes capable up up or down. I'd rejected a sliding window just because I imagined the dust that comes with chickens fouling the tracks and making them a nuisance to operate after not too much time.

What I wound up with has been a pretty slick.

It's 3'x3' instead of 2x2, but it's a "demonstrator" sliding glass door. Something the manufacturers provide to building supply showrooms. All the tracks/hardware/fittings . . . are for a full-size sliding glass door, just scaled down. Rides on wheels instead of slilding on rails. Any dust that might get into the tracks is easily dealt with by a few quick swipes of a brush every few months.

They'd be worth asking, but I don't know how good a source the big-box stores might be for such a thing as the manufacturers change design. A better chance might be had with large local/regional building supplie houses.