Hmm......

Had another thought, and that is that the doors can't go 'uppards' as
the bottom of the ladder sticks out into the hatch when it's in the
closed position.

The current arrangement is a standard doorknob type latch.

Perhaps the kind of thing you have to turn through 90 degrees together
with some sort of cantilever and weight arrangement is the way to go.

I can sort of visualise how the cantilever & weight thing might work,
but wonder if the poster of this suggestion (sotty, forgoten who
suggested it) could give some more pointers.

The other idea I have (though it goes outside my original design
brief, as i'd need to stand on a chair or some such in order to
open/close the doors) is to have some sort of rope & pully arrangement
to fix the first door (via a butch hook & eye) and then have the
second door latch onto that. This would allow the latch to be in the
centre of the long door edge rather than one at each end of each
"leaf"

I suppose the other option is to get in touch with Nick Parks and see
if he can ask Wallace & Gromit to come up with something!

In article , "Zikki
Malambo" says...
Hmm......

Had another thought, and that is that the doors can't go 'uppards' as
the bottom of the ladder sticks out into the hatch when it's in the
closed position.

The current arrangement is a standard doorknob type latch.

Perhaps the kind of thing you have to turn through 90 degrees together
with some sort of cantilever and weight arrangement is the way to go.

I can sort of visualise how the cantilever & weight thing might work,
but wonder if the poster of this suggestion (sotty, forgoten who
suggested it) could give some more pointers.


It was just an idea I came up with for dealing with a loft hatch I
put in a while ago - I haven't tried it yet, so I can't give you any
specific pointers. Because the cantilever has to clear the joists it
will be over-centre when the hatch is open vertically, so won't try
to close it. My hatch is thin T&G cladding on a frame, so not too
heavy - with yours I guess a longer arm is better than a bigger
weight (clearance permitting) to reduce the load on the hinges. As
for construction details ... dunno, what have you got lying around?
:-)


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