[Abhimanyu Kumar] is renovating a hotel in Nainital, near the India-Nepal border, and like any self-respecting Lord of the Rings fan, he wanted to give the restaurant a Hobbit theme. He built circular windows and to top it off a gorgeous round door complete with dragon hinges.
I asked him how well the doors work, as the 50kg (over 110lbs) weight of each of the doors must put a lot of strain on the hinges. [Abhimanyu] told me, “The door opens quite smoothly.While building the hinges even I was concerned about needing support as all other commercially available hinges we tried broke down or got bent.”
However, once the dragon hinge was installed it worked better that we expected and the door stays about 0.5″ over the ground at all times. The dragon hinges (made from 1/4-inch iron) integrate the hinge pins to the wings of the dragon, making it look like they are taking off when the doors open.
He has posted plenty of pictures of the build and the final product looks incredible. The tail of the dragon is quite long and provides a lot of support for the entire door. Each hinge itself weighs about 30kg, so it should be strong enough to hold up a door for a long time without any sagging. Kudos to him for some serious engineering!
Looks pretty amazing. I may be biased but this is a perfect job to be waterjet cut as 1/4 steel plate isn’t that easy to cut by hand.
A waterjet cutter. So want one. Would have made this easier :-)
However this was all hand cut with an angle grinder. I used an iron sheet and not a steel one so that made it slightly easier.
I love it. You could never get away with something this ornamental in the US, the ADA and OSHA would be all over a business owner in a heartbeat.
Only if there isn’t a normal door they could use. And it depends on business size/profit levels.
Funny you should say that.
I concede that part of the problem can be remedied by providing alternate, but equal access. However, those rounded corners present a clear and present danger with respect to the perceived width of the door. In the case of a fire, many people would rush that door and get tripped and trampled. Also, the pointed barbs at the end of the dragons tail would have to be rounded since it is used as a handle.
Despite this, I still love and want a door like this some day.
True. I didn’t know about the tail as a handle though, I don’t see that mentioned.
Of course you are right about the handles. A closer look at the image proves they are not handles; and that the assumption snake bit me. Maybe a double-barrel hinge?
@leaveareply
Look at the top. There’s a little metal tab . I think we’re looking at the push side, and the other side has pull handles.
Oh loads of work is still left on this project. That metal tab at the top is just a temp stop gap to keep the door in place. We will replace it with a proper latch. I do plan to put up some proper handles on the thing. Still working on what though :-)
This is the main entrance door and it is a fairly small restaurant ->30 ft x 30ft with a capacity of about 30 people so even using this door evacuation should not be that much of an issue -> It is about 7 feet wide. That being said we do have another door near the back part of the restaurant that could be used as a secondly exit if needed in case of an emergency.
I take it you mean that a bigger, more profitable business could pay off the inspectors.
Much worse than that: note the lack of reinforcing in the brick wall construction. Will people in that earthquake-prone part of the world never learn?!
I love the door, but another OSHA-enraging feature is that the door appears to open inwards. Exit doors should always be push to open.
They do indeed open inward, but that’s so you can get inside quickly in the event of an earthquake. Oh, wait…
Hahaha
We do have a push door on the opposite wall so that should calm down whosoever this OSHA is :-)
Almost all the walls are reinforced with steel mesh on the outside. I should have clicked a pic of that as well. Oh well next time i guess.
+1
The dragon ornamentation on the door looks like a butt. That is all.
The circular brick portal is really the most impressive part … looks great. Here in the US, you’d get an ADA fine so fast if you tried to build that!