Help Sourcing Garage Door Tracks for Skyshed ROR Observatory Build

[skymuster (Mike)]

Hi all,

I’m in the process of building a home-built roll-off roof observatory and recently purchased the excellent Skyshed ROR plans. I’ve converted these plans into metric, using timber dimensions available here in Australia, and I’m now preparing to order materials.

The design calls for a garage door-style track with rollers (quite a few of them!). From the posts and videos I’ve seen, people seem happy with this design, especially compared to the alternative using a v-groove track on one side and a flat roller on the other.

The problem I’m running into is sourcing the garage door tracks locally. I’ve found many suppliers for the rollers and hinges, but the tracks themselves are proving difficult to find. I did manage to find one supplier, but their prices are extremely expensive—the cost for the tracks, rollers, and hinges is coming out at nearly $1000!

Has anyone here had experience sourcing this type of track locally? Any recommendations for suppliers or cost-effective alternatives? Alternatively, would I be better off redesigning the sliding mechanism with the v-groove/flat roller combo? It seems that v-groove hardware is easier to find (for example, through sliding gate suppliers) and might be cheaper.

I’d really appreciate any advice or insights you can share!

[I.C.D (Ian)]

Originally Posted by skymuster

Hi all,

I’m in the process of building a home-built roll-off roof observatory and recently purchased the excellent Skyshed ROR plans. I’ve converted these plans into metric, using timber dimensions available here in Australia, and I’m now preparing to order materials.

The design calls for a garage door-style track with rollers (quite a few of them!). From the posts and videos I’ve seen, people seem happy with this design, especially compared to the alternative using a v-groove track on one side and a flat roller on the other.

The problem I’m running into is sourcing the garage door tracks locally. I’ve found many suppliers for the rollers and hinges, but the tracks themselves are proving difficult to find. I did manage to find one supplier, but their prices are extremely expensive—the cost for the tracks, rollers, and hinges is coming out at nearly $1000!

Has anyone here had experience sourcing this type of track locally? Any recommendations for suppliers or cost-effective alternatives? Alternatively, would I be better off redesigning the sliding mechanism with the v-groove/flat roller combo? It seems that v-groove hardware is easier to find (for example, through sliding gate suppliers) and might be cheaper.

I’d really appreciate any advice or insights you can share!

Hi Mike I don’t the lenght of your ror , my last of ror was 3mx3m and I used 40mm uni-strut and I used 40mm wheel bearing to roll the roof off and was still working when I sold the house

[skymuster (Mike)]

Originally Posted by I.C.D

Hi Mike I don’t the lenght of your ror , my last of ror was 3mx3m and I used 40mm uni-strut and I used 40mm wheel bearing to roll the roof off and was still working when I sold the house

I am planning to build the 6' x 8' obs (1.8m x 2.4m) so defintiely smaller than yours. Do you have any photos of your design?

[I.C.D (Ian)]

Hi Mike pm your email address and I will send you some pictures

[skymuster (Mike)]

Originally Posted by I.C.D

Hi Mike pm your email address and I will send you some pictures

PM sent

[Solarstorm (Chris)]

Hi Mike and Ian,


I just purchased the Skyshed plans as well and been going through them these past couple of days. I must admit, the plans could be better. They've been selling them for such a long time, it would have been a small effort to convert them to metric and help provide better descriptions of the materials.


I'd really appreciate if anyone can share with me any information in regards to sourcing the materials for this project. I'm comfortable building things, but first time round for something this "big".


I'm looking at building either the 3mX2.4m (10x8 feet) or 2.4mX1.8m(8x6 feet) shed.


I'm hoping Bunnings will stock most of the material, but something tells me I'm going to have to start shopping around at other timber places. Not sure if I they'll be able to decipher the exactly type of wood required for each of the phases.


e.g I fine the below to be quite confusing:


2 PINE 000.750x005.500x096.000 "PINE 1"" x 6"" NOM x 8'"
2 PINE 001.000x010.000x006.000 "PINE 1"" x 10"" ACTUAL x 6"""


Many thanks,
Chris,

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Wow, those dimensions are a bit cryptic...

I'd decpher the first one as:

Pine, actual 0.75 inches by 5.5 inches, of length 96 inches.

The 'NOM' I take to mean 'nominal' - what it's called in the timber yards (ie, a 1x6 plank that's 8 feet long).

Converting the 'NOM' values to metric that becomes 25mm x 150mm x 2400mm.

Welcome to the world of construction, where actual (real world) measurements do not match what's on the plans.

Cheers,
V.

[Solarstorm (Chris)]

Hey Steve - you now understand how I felt when I first saw the XLS sheet with the list of materials.....


Nevertheless, what I understand is that pine wood marked as "NOM" are the ones used for constructing the frame where there is some tolerance for inaccuracies, while the "ACTUAL" is used for areas where things have to be precise.


If you take your time to build the observatory, I believe it can become a very rewarding process.


I also spoke with Darebin council (I'm located in Reservoir) and they've confirmed I don't require a permit or approval for the shed.


Now I need to decide if I'm going to use a concrete slab or have the shed floating in the air on 4 or 6 poles cemented into the ground!

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Solarstorm

I also spoke with Darebin council (I'm located in Reservoir) and they've confirmed I don't require a permit or approval for the shed.


Now I need to decide if I'm going to use a concrete slab or have the shed floating in the air on 4 or 6 poles cemented into the ground!

Chris, it’s best if you start your own thread about your needs, so that Mike’s thread doesn’t get derailed (pun).

Thanks
RB

[skymuster (Mike)]

Originally Posted by Solarstorm

Hi Mike and Ian,


I just purchased the Skyshed plans as well and been going through them these past couple of days. I must admit, the plans could be better. They've been selling them for such a long time, it would have been a small effort to convert them to metric and help provide better descriptions of the materials.


I'd really appreciate if anyone can share with me any information in regards to sourcing the materials for this project. I'm comfortable building things, but first time round for something this "big".


I'm looking at building either the 3mX2.4m (10x8 feet) or 2.4mX1.8m(8x6 feet) shed.


I'm hoping Bunnings will stock most of the material, but something tells me I'm going to have to start shopping around at other timber places. Not sure if I they'll be able to decipher the exactly type of wood required for each of the phases.


e.g I fine the below to be quite confusing:


2 PINE 000.750x005.500x096.000 "PINE 1"" x 6"" NOM x 8'"
2 PINE 001.000x010.000x006.000 "PINE 1"" x 10"" ACTUAL x 6"""


Many thanks,
Chris,

Hi Chris!

I share your frustration with the imperial nature of the Skyshed plans for us metricified Aussies! They certainly like to make it complicated with the NOM-inal vs ACTUAL dimensions everywhere. This website explains the difference: https://www.lowes.com/n/how-to/nomin...l-lumber-sizes

Basically to get the "Bunnings equivalent" I converted everything to ACTUAL and then converted Inches to Millimeters (1"=25.4mm) to work out what I needed. So, a "nominal" 2"x4" piece of lumber became a 1.5" x 3.5" "actual" which equates to 38mm x 89mm. I rounded this to a "Bunnings equivalent" of 35mm x 90mm. Similarly, a 4"x4" post (actual = 3.5" x 3.5") became a 90mmx90mm post at Bunnings, and so on.

If you PM me I can share the whole "converted" BOM with you.

Going back to the original topic though, I decided to modify the design to use a combination of V-groove and flat castors instead of the garage door style track. My reasons were twofold:

1. Cost. The garage dooe tracks were very difficult to source on their own and required ~10 rolling wheels per side which all added up to the overall price making this a very expensive part of the whole project.

2. Lateral movement. I had read a few reviews from different people who've used the garage roller door solution saying that there can be a degree of lateral play involved with these type of roller wheels. This can play havoc with electric gate openers that run over a toothed track (imagine the gate motor losing contact with the track). On the other hand, a V-groove track naturally keeps the roof centred horizontally.


Saying all of this, my shed is not in the construction stage yet so I'm sure there will be some variations to the end design once build gets underway. I have developed my own updated plans and decided on all the parts I need and will be ordering them all shortly.


As a side note, I've also been beavering away at developing the automation logic to control the electric roof operation using a combination of:
1. local push buttons
2. smart home integration with Home Assistant (using MQTT)
3. N.I.N.A. sequence integration (over HTTP).
4. Reed sensors to confirm safety of telescope mount.
I'll save all of that for a separate post, as it could get quite involved!