J. Clarke wrote:
My garage door served notice today that it's in need of replacement.
It's your basic 2-car sectional overhead type. Rather than buy
another one, I'm thinking that it would be fun to make one, using the
old one as a pattern--the hardware all seems to be good so no reason I
can think of not to move it over to the replacement.

The question is, what to make it out of. The old one was jummywood
and masonite and lasted 30 years or so. Was thinking about a
composite rather than all one material--maybe use ash for the top rail
that carries most of the load (and that let go on the existing door),
and cypress for the bottom rail that is a bit rotted and maybe spruce
for the rest to save weight?

Anybody have any other ideas? Or any reason I should _not_ do this?


Cedar or better yet, redwood.

I built a house in '81 and had a plain flat sectional door put in. The
installer used some of the house siding - 1 x 6 vertical cedar, rough
side out and installed it over the plain ply faced door. He beveled the
cuts between sections, maybe 30 degrees at most, so water wouldn't get
in. When the door was closed, there was no noticeable gap between
sections.

I had an 18' wide door put in instead of two 8' singles with 2' wide
wall between. The 18' opening is the only way to go in new
construction, even though it required a glue-lam as a header. The door
was on the heavy side...