ArtMetal

Greetings this fine evening

I'm hoping to start a fruitful dialogue on fireplace doors.

The areas I'm thinking of are: Latching system, Hinging, Fitting the frame or no frame, Installation, and Finishes

So with that, I'll start the ball by writing what I know. Here's my first fireplace door. It doesn't have a frame, but instead is installed on pintles. What I did was build the frames to fit as closely as possible to the stonework, while still leaving a small gap. I fabricated bolt-on pintles, for the top and bottom. Both are adjustable. They need to fit directly under the doors, otherwise you need more of a gap for opening and closing. The latch is basically the same one I'll use on all my doors. It's a simple gate style and provides positive locking. Several of my clients have expressed concerned about shifting logs knocking the doors open and starting a fire. For installation, I drilled holes into the stonework and epoxied a sleeve in the top holes and made a drop-in decorative sleeve for the bottom holes. There's always a small amount if stress when drilling the holes, with the liking bits have of shifting.

Fireplace doors one

Here's a close-up of the top pin
close-up of door one

And here's a second example:
Second firepalce doors

Here's one I did around Christmas. It's a angle iron frame with a hinging system like you find on most wood stoves. It's pretty easy to do and allows you to make pins with large decorative tops. For most of these doors, I've used a heavy screen and have it rolled flat at a friends shop. Because it's heavy, little stretching is needed (still be nice to hear some ideas on that) and you can attach decorative elements directly to the mesh. Installation is done by drilling four holes in the frame and attaching straps that are lag bolted into the brickwork. Works well, but I feel the straps are unsightly.

fireplace door three

Close-up of the hinges:
Close-up of fireplace door three.1

Here's my last door. Everything went well, but I'm disappointed in myself. I was so focused on the hinges and installation, that I failed to take advantage of all the clear brickwork. Just think what I could have come up with if I had used my imagination. However, here I was able to solve a couple of things I had been worry about. I like to use rolled hinges, but with the door frames overlapping as I have in the past, it a lot of fiddling to get them even. So this time, after I had build the frame, I welded a lip all the way around the inside and build the doors to fit inside the frame and the lip provides a backstop and spark block. Since both the frame and doors are out of 3/16, I get a flush fit. The other thing I did different was how I installed. ( I got this for a gentleman over on IForge) Instead of drilling into the stone or brick, I tapped holes into the frame every 5-6 inches. I used 1/4-20 bolts and ground down the tips to a sharp point so that they would grab better. This technique will only work in a framed door. The installation works on a friction fit. I walked in with the doors, slid them into the fireplace, tightened down the bolts and in fifteen minutes, done. It works really well. All those little points of contact insure a tight fit without having to drill into the house.

fireplace doors four

Here's a close-up of the lip and tapped holes:
close-up of fireplace doors four

Ok, I've proofread this, but tomorrow I'll look and see all sorts of mistakes.