New Space Update 8: New Door

Leeds Hackspace New Front Door

Remember we picked up a new door a couple of weeks ago? This weekend we fitted it. Replacing the door was quite an important part of preparing to move into the new premises – the old door was not only falling apart and as a double leaf door it was going to be either difficult or expensive to secure in a reliable, electronically controllable way.

Removing the old door was a challenge. Old bricks meant a lot of bolts spun in their anchors and some sections of the old grating had their nuts welded on to the screw thread. We broke out the grinder.

If in doubt, don’t buy a cordless grinder. Just go with the mains. It’s cheaper and probably a lot more effective. You won’t spend half your life running back and forth between job site and battery charger, that’s for sure.

Angle-grinding off the frame

While putting up cable conduit we unfortunately dropped a drill down the back of one of the pre-existing false walls so we had to buzz open a drill-sized hole in the wall with a jigsaw to retrieve it. A quick patch up and covering with some filler was all that was required.

Cutting open the wall with a jigsaw to retrieve drill

Tim, Samson and Tom continued with the electrical installation – all the sockets are now installed. Cables are run back to the cabinet. All that is required now is to run the chunky DB to DB cables and we can start wiring in. The meter installer is coming on Thursday to hook up our proper 3-phase power supply.

The fitting of the door took longer than expected, and as such the lock was installed in a bit rush at the end of the day to make the building secure before everyone went home. Sunday’s job was to take the hacked together strike plate and replace it with something more substantial and hardwearing.

Marking out the strike plate

The strike plate being filed to make the holes straight-edged

Because our door is a little unusual in its design it required some quite drastic modification to work with our solenoid actuated lock. Not to worry though, the strength of the door will not be grossly affected by removing this small segment. The rest of the door is left intact and connected.

Fitted strike plate

There’s still some fettling to do before the door is 100% finished – it sticks a bit when opening and closing, and there’s a section of sharp pointy metal covered in tape that needs to be removed – but there we have it. Our new door, to replace the terrible rotten old wooden one. Time for some paint, and maybe some expanding foam!

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