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The Making of a Sing Core Door – From Concept Drawing to Finished Door

The Making of a Sing Core Door

When you first consider ordering a Sing Core door panel, you may wonder what all goes into making your order? If Sing Core is really such a unique and high-quality product, how is it made? Today, let’s dive into the process of taking a Sing Core custom door from concept drawing to finished door.

Step 1: Quote

The first step to any Sing Core door is to request a quote. You can do this by clicking the orange “Pricing” button in the top right corner of most of the pages on our website. This will take you to our order form where you will need to provide the details of your job. These include measurements, door style, use, and more. From there, your completed form gets sent to our sales team, who process your request and reach out to you with a quote. Sometimes they’ll ask for more information, but by the end of this conversation you’ll have a price and date of completion estimate.

Step 2: Shop Drawing

After you accept the quote and decide to move forward with your order, it gets sent off to the production team. The production team starts by making a shop drawing, which is a detailed drawing of your order, showing the exact measurements and shape needed to make your door a reality. The shop drawing is sent to you for one last round of approval, and then it gets put in the factory’s queue to be made.

Step 3: Building

Finally the time to actually make your order has arrived! The factory team starts by analyzing the shop drawing and making a plan for your door. Sometimes the plan is simple, but in some highly-customized-order scenario, there may be additional steps or materials needed. They then create the base of your door order: a Sing Honeycomb Core panel built to the specifications of your project. We use patented and patent-pending technology and designs to make this high end, lightweight, and incredibly strong panel. The panel is then framed and protected with high quality wood sheets, which completes your order. If you requested any additional features for your order, like in the case of a Sing Core Security Panel, then those added features would be added at various times throughout the process, depending on what they are.

Step 4: Wrapping Up

Next, we take your order and package it for shipping. This can vary in execution depending on some factors, such as size, location, and urgency. Many orders will have custom crates built to protect the panel during shipping if possible. The panel goes through one final inspection before being loaded up, and then you will be notified that your order has shipped.

Process Summarized

Your order goes through many stages to ensure quality and accuracy, and we work with you regularly to make sure we’re all on the same page when it comes to your custom order. All orders are appreciated equally at Sing Core, and we guarantee the same high quality, lightweight and sturdy product for everyone. In addition, you get our 50 Year Warp-Free and Structural Guarantee with every panel ordered.

Thank you for your interest in using Sing Core for your custom doors. If you have any questions, feel free to submit a quote request and our Sales team will be happy to assist you!

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Hinged Doors vs Pivot Doors, Which is Better?

Hinged Door vs Pivot Door

Many different styles and designs fill the door industry, and two of the most popular are hinged doors and pivot doors. They may sound similar, but they have fundamental differences in their operation and design that set them apart. Both are great options, but let’s go over what each style is, and when you may or may not want to use it.

What is a Hinged Door?

This is what most people think of first when they think of a door. The classic barrier held up on 2-3 hinges on one side. These doors are the classic choice for a reason; they’re easy and they work. Hinged doors have been around since 1600 B.C., over 3,600 years ago. The hinges attach to both the wall and the door itself, allowing it to swing open and shut freely. There are many benefits to hinge doors, one of which being how universally understood they are. Hinged doors can usually be installed rather easily, are simple to operate, and most maintenance can be done by the home or business owner. In addition, for many small to standard sized doors, hinges work great.

The downsides to hinged doors mostly revolve around the hardware and opening mechanics. Hinges have several points where they can bend, break, or seize up, and that would cause the door to cease operating or be severely limited in its functionality. The door rests entirely suspended by the hinges. This means there is constant pressure pulling away from them, and depending on the size and weight of your door, this can turn into a big problem. A squeaky hinge is one thing, but a broken hinge causes the door to be completely inoperable in some cases, and usually leads to the other hinges breaking soon due to the increased weight on them.

Hinged doors are still fantastic options for many situations, but when it comes to large and heavy doors, they present some potential problems.

What is a Pivot Door?

Pivot doors at first seem to function much like hinged doors. They pivot open from one side, and can look nearly identical. However, where hinged doors use hinges to mount to the wall, pivot doors have a slightly more unique mechanic.

Pivot doors usually are mounted from the top and bottom near one side of the door, as opposed to the side. This attachment can be imagined as a pole running through the door, and the door rotates around said pole. This is just a simple explanation, though, as pivot doors can be attached in many different ways. A pivot door opens up in a similar fashion to the hinged door, but is often far smoother to operate and present a more unique visual, given the door is actually rotating away from the wall on both sides.

Pivot doors are much more stable choices when it comes to large and heavy doors, and standard sized doors as well. Because they are not attached and completely suspended from one side, they have far less impact on their hardware. In addition, pivot doors are usually made with more resilient hardware to begin with, so your door will remain beautiful and functional for a very long time.

The downsides of a pivot door mainly revolve around the maintenance and installation, as they are far more specialized entryways. Pivot doors often need a trade professional to install, and should anything happen to the door, maintaining its operating point can be far more difficult.

To alleviate the problem with both doors, we suggest using Sing Core for your pivot and hinged door panels! The lightweight and resilient nature of Sing Core significantly lowers the risk associated with these doors and leaves you with a fantastic door guaranteed for 50 Years.

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Innovate Your Build with Sing Core

Innovative Design Possibilities with Sing Core

A door says a lot about your home or office, and designers are creating the biggest, best, and most beautiful door designs for their projects. Many of these grand doors use Sing Core panels due to their strength, lightweight nature, and customizability. Let’s go over some of the best doors made with Sing Core.

Massive Pink Door

This huge door was installed in a luxury home, and stands 13 feet tall and 3 feet wide. This beautiful door features a hardwood frame and was crafted to artisanal quality. This door operates as a hinged door, and can be easily opened and closed despite its size due to the lightweight nature of Sing Core panels. Due to this, the hinges will last far longer than they would with a traditional heavy door. Between the excellent quality, long life span, and the beautiful work done by the architect and design team, this bright door will bring color and life to the residence for an incredibly long time.

Large Gray Door

This massive pivot door is 5 foot 3 inches wide and nearly 10 feet tall. It serves as the exterior door to a home, and offers a huge entryway that is not common with traditional doors. The door swings open as a pivot door, similar to a hinge door, but the hardware usually attaches to the top and bottom of the door as opposed to mounted on the side. Sing Core panels work very well for pivot doors, as their customizable design can be made to account for the different hardware. This door’s massive size would lead to it being incredibly heavy and hard to operate with other building methods, but with Sing Core it remains easy to use and looking great.

Laserfiche Sliding Doors

The Laserfiche California Headquarters worked with Sing Core to make several doors for their offices, this large set of corner sliding doors being the highlight piece. This high end large door slides back along the squared walls to reveal the room within, opening up a huge entryway. It can also be closed to seal the room off in a box manner. Sing Core panels work especially well for sliding doors, as their combination of unique hardware and function, plus the limitations that are put in place by the mechanisms present many challenges when it comes to weight and size. A set of sliding doors of this size would certainly be unwieldy, require even more expensive hardware, and would have many other drawbacks. With Sing Core, these doors remain light and easy to use despite their size, and as such easily roll along their tracks to open and close.

Sing Core is proud to be involved in so many important projects, and we are confident that our panels allow more innovative and fun designs. Whether you’re working on a large door, custom shaped door, or a door with any other number of features, contact Sing Core to learn how we can enhance your project and build the best door together.

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Sing Core’s 50 Year Guarantee

Sing Core’s Famous 50 Year Guarantee

At Sing Core, we are well known for the high quality door and wall panels we manufacture. Their many qualities allow them to speak for themselves, though our famous 50 Year Guarantee is what really sends them to the top. Our panels are strong, lightweight, and make beautiful doors, but without a warranty those traits are far less valuable. Sing Core panels, however, come with a 50 Year warp-free and structural guarantee. This turns those fancy words into a real promise, which is more than most other panels on the market can claim.

Why 50 Years?

50 years is a long time, longer than any other custom panel manufacturer is willing to claim. It comes with significant risk, as over the course of 50 years, a lot can happen to the product. Temperature and weather exposure can cause it to warp, frequent use can cause faults in the structure, and more. With Sing Core panels, this isn’t a concern. We don’t just promise 50 years and hope the panel survives, we promise 50 years because we know it will. In fact, Sing Core panels are designed to last far longer than 50 years, though we feel 50 years is a good amount of time to prove the durability and quality of our product, and is far more than what the rest of the industry is willing to offer.

Warp-Free Guarantee

Part of the 50 Year Sing Core Warranty is a promise that our panels will never warp. Warping presents a huge concern for doors and walls, and particularly large doors are at higher risk of warping just due to their size. A warped door can lead to all kinds of issues, such as sealing problems, difficulty opening and closing, and even up to full failure of the structure or function. Sing Core panels are built using our patented and patent-pending designs that guarantee they will never warp, so this completely eliminates the risk of your door or wall failing in that way.

Warping may seem unlikely, but it is incredibly common and can happen for a number of reasons. In areas with volatile temperatures and harsh weather warping is more likely to occur, especially when regularly exposed to moisture such as rain or snow. Even in regions with calmer weather, warping can happen seemingly for no reason. Sing Core panels will never warp, and that is what our 50 Year Guarantee is built on.

Structural Guarantee

In addition to never warping, our panels also come with a structural guarantee. This means that if the door fails in a way related to the manufacturing process, we will make it right. Our panels are crafted of high quality materials in a controlled environment and are solid as a rock, while still being lightweight. We also inspect them all before sending them out, so they should never fail. However, while we are confident in our product, we want you to be confident in it, too. That’s why we offer a structural guarantee as a part of the warranty, so that you know you’ll be covered if your panel ever does fail.

How to Use Your Warranty

In the unlikely event that you need to make use of your warranty, the process is very easy. All you have to do is contact us with the information about the initial panel order and what went wrong, and we will get the process started. During the process you may be asked to provide pictures and information, but rest assured that we will make it right.

Thank you for using Sing Core!

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Lifespan of Sing Core Panels

The Lifespan of a Sing Core Panel

Sing Core panels are strong, lightweight, and built to last, but people often wonder how long they can expect their Sing Core panel to hold up? Whether you use Sing Core for doors, walls, or any other creative purpose, you can trust our product to stand the test of time.

50 Year Guarantee

All Sing Core panels come with a 50 Year Warp-Free and Structural Guarantee, though we do not consider this to be the limit to their lifespan. While we guarantee our panels will not warp or fail for 50 years, we build them to last much longer than that. Sing Core panels are expected to last hundreds of years in proper conditions, and even in severe conditions where their strength is tested every day, we still promise 50 years of quality and structural integrity. No other comparable material can compete with that.

What Makes Them So Durable?

Sing Core panels have many features, and one is the incredible durability that inspires our confidence in our product. This durability is achieved in many ways through our manufacturing process and patented designs, but I will touch on a few here.

Strong Design

Sing Core panels are carefully engineered to be structurally sound and fail free down to their core. Our patented Sing Honeycomb Core allows for an incredibly lightweight panel without compromising integrity, and evenly distributes weight, impacts, and strain throughout the door or wall. In addition, we finish our panels with high-quality hardwood to ensure the exterior is just as resilient as the interior.

Skins and Finishing

The strength and durability of your door or wall panel can be enhanced further depending on the skin you choose to finish it with. While even just vinyl or wood skins can greatly extend the lifespan of the product, if you choose to finish it with a metal skin, that is only further solidifying the panel and providing additional impact and surface protection.

Warp-Free

Another major advantage of Sing Core’s designs is that they will remain warp-free for their lifespan. Warping is bad in any use of our panels, but especially when it comes to doors. A warped door panel can have a wide range of complications even from a seemingly insignificant warp. Sliding doors may not follow their tracks, pivot and hinge doors may never seal properly again, and more. That’s why we’re proud to share that our panels will never warp on you, and that is included in their 50 Year Guarantee.

Easy Repairs

In the event your panel does end up damaged, even then, it’s not all lost. It is often possible to repair the panel through a few methods, and when the repair is complete, the panel is returned to full strength.

Our Promise

We don’t only promise to deliver the best lightweight, strong, and resilient door or wall panel on the market, but we also ensure it will last you a very long time. If your Sing Core panel warps or fails on you at any point within the 50 years, we will make it right. But don’t expect to cash in on that promise, as you’ll find that panel simply doesn’t want to fail.

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Maximizing Space with Sing Core

How to Maximize Space with Sing Core

 

Many homes, offices, and other buildings run into one simple, yet very common problem: a lack of space. As young adults move into their first homes, or families work to downsize, or even as a company moves into a new office, a lack of space can yield many problems. Today, let’s look at how you can use Sing Core to maximize your space and turn what was once a small area into a versatile and efficient suite.

The Size Problem

The most common issue that causes this is a small area to work with. When you’re low on square footage, you want to make the most of what you have. While having walls, doors, and other privacy or aesthetic features are important, you don’t want to lower your usable area with narrow walkways and seemingly lost room. Some homes can easily adopt an open concept floor plan, but for some people and some businesses, that doesn’t really work.

One way Sing Core can help fix this issue is with moveable partitions or reconfigurable walls. It may sound outlandish, but adjustable walls and dividers are very practical and growing in popularity. Businesses such as the Center for Architecture and Design in Seattle use movable walls and partitions to change up their space between a closed off conference room and a large, open gallery for the public. In a business sense, adjustable dividers make a lot of sense, and they are equally as useful in private homes. Adding a multi-purpose room via a movable wall can allow you to add or remove rooms from your home as needed. For example, your living room can be opened up for company, but then closed off when watching a movie for a more cinematic experience. Another great option is to take a room such as your living room or den and put a configurable wall in to close off and create a guest bedroom when needed, then open up when not. Adjustable partitions and walls can be an incredible way to maximize limited space, and with Sing Core panels you can be confident that they will last and be easy to adjust, given our lightweight yet sturdy product.

Customizability

With a reconfigurable room, you suddenly open up numerous possibilities in regards to your home or office. Turn a conference room into a waiting room for your business, or even adjust the wall to direct foot traffic to the area you want people going. In your home, you can turn your large meeting space into multiple smaller rooms for when guests stay over, or you have the need for separate spaces for different groups or functions. The options with room dividing walls are endless, and they can make a small space feel much larger simply by sliding a divider along a track. When it comes to movable walls and partitions, Sing Core makes the best product on the market. Our door and wall panels are lightweight, durable, and pound-for-pound stronger than steel, meaning you don’t have to sacrifice anything when you order from us, instead you get the best qualities on the market.

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Being Eco-Friendly at Sing Core

Sing Core’s Eco-Friendly Design

Here at Sing Core, we strive to leave the Earth better than we found it. That philosophy drives our material sourcing, production methods, and many more aspects about how we run as a company.

Eco-Friendly Sourcing

When it comes to our wood, insulation, and other materials, we source them from the most eco-friendly places we can find. For example, the wood we use is renewable, and our insulation isn’t shredded fiberglass. Our panels are crafted to be high quality, long lasting, and strong, but we don’t sacrifice our Earth-conscious promises to achieve that.

 

Lower Emissions

Another way we keep our impact on the Earth in check is through lowering our emissions through local production. We are an all American company, and every one of our panels are made in Washington State. By staying local and keeping business in the country, we not only promote and help the economy, but also the environment, as we have significantly lower emissions and fuel consumption compared to companies that outsource their production. Shipping product, especially large custom pieces, can be incredibly time consuming and uses a lot of fuel. This fuel burning can harm the atmosphere, and in some cases, spills and damages can dump toxic gas and oil into the delicate ecosystems in the oceans. Sing Core doesn’t contribute to this damage on the planet, as we keep our production local.

No-Burn Factory

Many factories burn trash, chemicals, or other harmful materials in their production process. These places often have smoke columns and plumes of thick, dark smoke to mark where they are. At Sing Core, we don’t burn anything in our panel production. There is nothing in our process that requires burning, melting, or anything of the sort, and as such our impact on the atmosphere is near zero.

 

Better Product = Less Waste

Not to gloat, but Sing Core panels are incredibly strong. Not only that, they last a very long time, and even come with a 50 Year Structural and Warp-Free Guarantee. This may seem like a sales pitch, but it actually plays into our environmentally friendly mission. By creating panels that last a long time and can be easily repaired, we greatly reduce the amount of waste from replacing or scrapping projects. Every time a door needs replaced, it ends up in a landfill, or at best parts of it get recycled. With a Sing Core panel, you won’t have to worry about replacing the door any time soon, which in turn cuts down on our impact on the environment.

Sing Core strives for many things, such as creating the best door and wall panels on the market. But in these endeavors, we will never lose sight of the importance of being eco-friendly. We are also always looking for ways to lessen our impact even more, and are working to join the list of companies that can proudly say they’ve made a difference.

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Sing Core Optional Features and Upgrades

Sing Core panels are a versatile and quality solution to the majority of door, wall, and other construction or design projects. While we have our standard honeycomb panels, there are a few additional features that are available which may prove useful in some circumstances. Most customizations or options can be discussed and designed to match your project goals during the quoting process, but here are just a few of the common options or upgrades we offer:

Skin Types

One of the main sources of variety to our panels is our vast selection of skin types. These are essentially the finishing touch on our door and wall panels, in which we cover the core with high quality and visually appealing skins. These can be anything from wood staves to a vinyl wrap and more, all depending on the job at hand. Click here to see our full selection of skins.

Insulation, Sound Reduction, and Thickness

We recently wrote about the sound reduction and deadening qualities of Sing Core panels here, so we’ll only touch on that part briefly. Sing Core uses high end insulation to fill all voids within our panels, meaning there are no thin spots to compromise the insulation’s integrity or function. This means that, unlike most standard doors, a Sing Core door won’t sap the heat from your climate-controlled home or office and cause your heating bill to skyrocket. Another advantage of this insulation method is a sound reducing nature. The better insulated a door or wall panel is, the less sound it lets through it. A thicker panel also shares this benefit. Thus, by using a Sing Core panel to create doors or walls for a sound studio, you can choose the strength of sound reduction you’d like by adjusting the thickness of the panels you order. Thin panels will provide some sound reduction, and thicker panels will result in near complete sound deadening.

Security Features

Sing Core panels are incredibly strong and durable, but sometimes you may want a little bit more peace of mind regarding the safety of what is behind your new door. Sing Core offers two main ways to improve the security of your door, either with a metal skin or with our new Sing Core Security Door. A metal skin offers improved protection to the surface of the door, which can be helpful when it comes to someone attempting to break or cut through it. Our Security Door, however, includes a grid of steel bars running throughout the panel, massively increasing the strength of the door, while also drastically increasing the time it would take someone to cut or break through. In terms of protection, the metal skin protects the door itself, and the Security Door internal support protects your home or office by preventing someone from getting through. Combining these two features creates an even better, incredibly strong door that would bring a would-be intruder to tears.

Customizable Shape

The last, but most common option when it comes to customizing our door and wall panels is the shape and size. We want to make sure you aren’t limited merely by maximum size or standard shape. We can build a panel to nearly any specifications, whether it be large, small, straight, rounded, with a window cutout, and many more customization options. When planning out your door and sending us the details, we encourage you to design the best door you can, and we’ll provide the best panel on the market.

Sing Core panels come in many shapes and sizes, quite literally. There are also additional features to consider when ordering from us, and this article doesn’t even cover all of the customizable options. Feel free to examine our website or reach out with any questions regarding your door or wall panel needs, and we look forward to working with you!

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7 Years Later, Sing Core’s AIA Donation

Seattle’s Center for Architecture and Design had their grand opening 7 years ago in March, 2016, and they have stood as a pillar for the architecture and design industry ever since. We are honored to have worked with the AIA to construct this beautiful place. Their confidence in us and our product was felt, as this was a major project that had a lot of work put in from start to finish. It all started with an amazing design plan and incredible vision for the limited space they had available, and together with the great teams working on this project we were able to build the wonderful gallery that can be seen today.

Seattle Center for Architecture and Design


As a chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Seattle Center for Architecture and Design welcomes and promotes many different styles and techniques of architecture, hosting valuable presentations and events in their welcoming gallery. On display they have many different subjects of the architecture and design industries, and many people visit the center from open until close to see these marvelous features and discuss these themes.

During their grand opening, the Center for Architecture and Design was in need of some large, adjustable walls and doors to manipulate the gallery as needed. Their vision was to have walls that could be adjusted to create a beautiful, open space for guests, but could also be turned as to create a closed area to hold meetings and conferences. Sing Core donated the wall panels needed for this grand project, as well as customized them with additions such as a man door, allowing an easy entrance and exit even when the room had been closed off. The donated panels were actually so large that the front windows had to be temporarily removed, as the product would not fit through the door!

In addition to the adjustable walls and doors Sing Core donated, we also provided furniture for the office in the form of high end desks, shelving, partition walls, and more, all using our patented and patent-pending Sing Core products.

These grand adjustable walls are still in place today, and can be seen as a main piece of the Center’s gallery. They were created and still function to serve one main purpose: to maximize space in an innovative way. And while Sing Core is proud of our donation, we also owe a significant compliment to the incredible teams that designed the floor plan and installed the doors and walls, as their excellent skills and labor were just as essential in creating this space.

Texas Society of Architects

Sing Core also provided our panels at a discount to the Texas Society of Architects by AIA for use in their offices and building space. The location had a significant noise problem with their high, industrial style ceiling, and they needed high end panels to cut down on the echoes and residual sound. By installing Sing Core panels in strategic places, they were able to significantly cut down on the noise and establish a far more relaxed and focused work environment. Once again, this could not have been done without the incredible design and installation teams who perfectly utilized the Sing Core panels..

Conclusion

Sing Core is proud to be a platinum donor and support these AIA locations and the amazing things they do for the architecture and design community. If you are a member of the AIA, please share this article with your fellow AIA members, and we welcome you to reach out about any AIA project like these so that we can continue to help the organization, and we would be honored to do so at a discounted rate to help your budget. To learn more about the products provided to the Seattle and Texas locations, click here.

More Pictures of the Seattle and Texas AIA Donations