Roll-Up Door Prop

Since our last post had some discussion about cutting the roll-up door it seemed appropriate to follow up with this. Engineer Jim Hanel with the Golder Ranch Fire District sent in photos of a roll-up door training prop. The prop was built by Jeremy Rinder, a steel worker/artist from their area. A lot of thought went into the design: It can accommodate any size door since the two sides are totally independent and even works with different sized center rods and roll size. The large yellow handles adjust the distance between the center rod hole and the roll down channel. The small yellow handle (seen in the second picture) secures the roll from rotating once it is all set. As mentioned above, although it’s hard to tell from the pictures, the roll-up slides down a channel just like on an actual installation. The channel prevents the roll up from bouncing while making the cuts, giving it a realistic feel. The nice thing about this prop is once all of the cuts are made and there is no useable door left, simply roll down some fresh door, secure it, and go! The prop can be broken down into 4 pieces for storage or transport and can be fixed to the ground by spikes when necessary.

20 thoughts on “Roll-Up Door Prop

  1. ... says:

    If they havn’t already, I would say they should go into the busiess of selling these props. Having one of these around would be nice to demostrate many principals when an already existing door is not present. Simple idea made into something very useful. Nice job.

  2. will clelland says:

    Does anyone have plans for this prop, or even more pictures they would be willing to share??

  3. John N. says:

    Hey all, I know that this has been asked but please if anybody has any information on this prop please post. Either plans or sale information would be great. Some of us who are involved in our local fire academy were looking into making a prop to practise roll down gate evolutions and this looks like a great design. Stay safe

  4. Jack says:

    We did something similar in my house. We salvaged two channels and used some angle iron to piece it together. The channel on the left is fixed and extending to the right is about 12′ worth of angle iron. The channel on the right can be adjusted to accomadte any size roll down. We clamp the right channel into place and load the gat in it. It is held by two hooks at the top through holes we drill in the top slat. We have a local scrap metal guy who holds onto old roll downs which we get A LOT of and he lets us have them to cut up. We return them to him so he can cash in on them after we utilize it for our purposes. But it works just as well as above and was totally free and easy to make.s also easy to maintain and if you accidentally cut into the channel its no problem as its not as pretty as the above one. Either way they both work and are great to drill with and should be because how often do we cut roll downs now a day?

  5. Jim Hansel says:

    I have more photos that I can e-mail and the number of Jeremy Rinder (the designer)is 520-260-0095 here in Tucson.

  6. Dave says:

    Prop looks great…..clear blue sky and mountains in background look even better….from cloudy/wet/cold Ontario anyways :>)

  7. fitssiks says:

    Dual purpose device?
    This could also be used in conjunction with a (red) golf cart. Firefighters could be taught to wait for the door to fully open before they drove through. 🙂

  8. jacquie rinder says:

    dirty, you the man! Seeing you create such cool stuff in the name of safety makes me forget I ever asked for a chiminea for my birthday!!!!!

  9. Dave says:

    We’ve also been after a larger hall for years….we could have 3 of these built in a larger version and just place them out in the mall parking lot…make great truck bay doors….the hall would be as big as the parking lot.

  10. Joe Artanis says:

    Looks like a great training prop, but what would the cost be? Looks like it will be a little expensive.

  11. Jude Yandow says:

    Jeremy-It looks great! You make the family proud!

  12. Jude Yandow says:

    Jeremy-You make the family proud! Looks great!

  13. Jimm says:

    We posted some additional full size versions of the photos of this prop.
    Click Here to check them out. -Jimm-

  14. Tye says:

    This is a great looking prop. Sometimes roll-ups are hard to come though so get them when you can. You also should consider making a prop to use standard residential sectionals to cut on. We have some standards that are adjustable to accept 8 foot, 9 foot and 16 foot doors. The doors are readily available from a local overhead door company. We stack 4 in at a time and then use the self tapping screws to hold them together. I will try and send some pics to Jimm to post.

  15. Mike says:

    Great prop! Just reconfirms that you’re limited only by your imagination. If you can’t get your hands on actual doors, one other idea is to get sections of Q-decking. You can attach them to a couple of 4X4’s with screws and put the 4X4’s in a couple of metal mailbox post holders.

  16. TONY says:

    Hi Guys
    I am not a fire fighter but i am a fabricator of roll down gates located in Queens NY. The prop is great but it is not necessary. What we do for the fire house’s in NYC is we fabricate a complete used functioning roll down usually an 8 x 8 gate attached to a steel tubular frame with a bottom brace bracket used from used steel and we give a quick lesson on how to replace the slats and adjust the spring if need be. Replacement slats are plentifull. On top of this I will give them away free you just have to give me ample notice 2 to 3 weeks to get it ready. Come by with a truck and pick it up. We can even give you extra slats at the same time.

    Only one request we have before cutting a deal we need 4 of your fire house t shirts various sizes. If any one wants one contact me at tonyt@guardiangatesny.com.

    Be safe

  17. Brian McQueen says:

    Any chance you could send me the design/specs of the window bailout? Thanks

  18. ????? ???????? ???? says:

    What’s up,I read your new stuff named “Roll-Up Door Prop | VentEnterSearch.com” daily.Your humoristic style is witty, keep doing what you’re doing! And you can look our website about ????? ???????? ????.

Leave a Reply