Fig. 118
89. Sliding-Door Hangers and Track.—The first sliding-doors were usually carried on sheaves, or rollers, located at the bottom of a door, these rollers traveling on a metal track, which was either inserted in the floor or placed on its surface. This system, however, has been displaced by the more modern sliding-door hanger, which suspends the door from the top. The carriers containing the rollers, or wheels, run on an overhead track placed in a recess formed for that purpose above the soffit of the doorway.
The use of the overhead hanger requires a special construction of the head-jamb, not only to provide space for the overhead track, but also to furnish proper support for the brackets securing the same. It is therefore a good plan to determine in advance the type of hanger to be used, in order that the framing and other details of the doorway may be made to conform to it. The most important features to be considered in the selection of sliding-door hangers are the strength and stiffness of track, the provision for adjusting and reducing friction and noise, the strength and quality of the several parts, and the facility with which these parts can be fitted in place and adjusted when in use.
In order to overcome noise, the original overhead hanger was made with wooden track, which was placed on each side of the recess. On this track rolled the wheels in pairs, being generally riveted to an axle and having a space between them. The frame of the hanger traveled on the axle from end to end, to overcome friction, the adjustment being only in the hanger frame. Of this type of door hanger, the Prindle, the Stearns, the Warner, the Ives, and the Richards were the most widely used. The Ives improved wooden-track, house-door hanger is illustrated in [Fig. 119].
Fig. 119
Another form of sliding-door hanger, which is considered an improvement over the type just described, consists of the single or side steel-track hanger of the Lane or the Richards make. These sliding-door hangers are constructed entirely of steel, and the hanger proper has frictionless bearings, on the principle of the wooden-track hangers, but with one wheel to each hanger, running on a steel track fastened to one side of the recess. This combination is quite an improvement over the old-style hanger, and can be placed in position more readily. The wheels of these hangers, as shown in [Fig. 120], are constructed of two plates of steel, between which is placed a fiber wheel that is held in position by through rivets. The fiber portion of the wheel comes in contact with the track, while the plates act only as flanges, thus tending to reduce the noise caused by the operation of the door.
Fig. 120
