The new garage workshop has both a pedestrian walk door and the standard up-and-over garage door. The garage door only had some rope to pull to close the door – time to make a simple sturdy garage door pull!
I started by making some quick sketches with rough dimensions in my woodworking planning book. The idea was to have the rope run through the centre of the handle and be secured with a knot underneath, in the same way the plastic-style garage door pulls work (or pull cord light switches).
I selected some oak for the door pull, as I wanted it to be sturdy and survive being handled regularly. I orientated the design with the grain, so I would be pulling with the grain, rather than perpendicular to it. This will hopefully minimise the risk of the door pull splitting.
I then cut the square shape out using a hand saw to leave me a very cube-like letter “T” shape. I figured it would be easier to drill the centre hole while I had flat surfaces, so I made a small mark using an awl and then drilled through the door pull, ensuring that the drill remained as upright as possible.
Once the hole was complete, I used chisels and a Stanley knife (box cutter) to remove the sharp corners and round over the shape. This took a bit of time and eventually left me with a much more rounded shape.
Some hand sanding up through the grits to 120 grit left me a nice smooth handle, with some really decorative grain patterns.
I used some Danish oil as a finish to protect the oak and bring out the grain a bit, leaving the door pull to dry for a day or so.
I used a small screwdriver to assist pushing the rope through the door pull and then tied a knot near the end of the rope to secure the handle in place. I’m really pleased with how this has turned out – a very quick and relatively easy project that now makes it so much easier to close the garage door when I need, rather than trying to grip a fairly small (and short!) rope that gets blown about in the wind!🔨
The Woodworking Scientist 