Garage Door Whiteboard

Step 5 Make bottom extension hinges

Since the distance between the bottom of the whiteboard and the door will change as the curve of the door changes, we need a hinge for the bottom that can shorten and extend to deal with this.

You'll have to play with where the bottom gets mounted and with the exact placement of the parts in this step as it gets very garage door specific.

Use the pipe mounts to attach the PVC pipe the the two inner vertical support pieces. We put a screw in at the top to lock it all together. Do not put a screw in at the bottom or you've defeated the entire purpose of the pipe.

Once you have the pipe mounted, build the lower hinge mechanics. Use the eyebolt, rod coupler, pair of nuts, and the threaded rod to make a single metal rod with a loop at the end. Tighten it all up by tightening the bolts against the rod coupler. This forms one half of the bottom hinge.

Use the lag bolts, extra nuts, and large washers to make the other half of the hinge. This gets attached to the a low part of the door. We mounted it at the very lowest cross-member of the door.

Drill a couple of holes into the garage door so that you can get your wood screws through the metal and into the wood.

Now comes the tricky part. You have to get the rods into the PVC pipes, and then get the lag bolt assembly through the eye bolt and amount the lag bolt into wood you've mounted on the garage door.

You're going to have to play with spacings and the exact sizes of things to get the assembly to operate smoothly.

Here is a video of how these hinges should work, or at least how ours work.