Making a new screen for the front window

WilliamA

I've been going to get to this one for about a year now. I won't go into the many details of why, but suffice to say, I don't ever open the big window when camping because it's more of a mosquito funnel than a deterrent. Bugs get in, but can't get out. I'm okay with that as I don't often use it anyway, but it would be nice to have open in the summer when it's really hot. My motivation for making a good, usable screen isn't the bugs though, it's the fact that my screen/shade assembly is rapidly moving south under the force of gravity. All of the top screws holding it on the ceiling have long ago failed (they are just screwed into the cardboard ceiling panel) and the only thing that has been holding it up at all is the caulk I used to fill the gap between the screen frame and the intermediate Moons screwed to the roof. The moons have pretty much failed so tonight I took the whole thing out clear down to the wall surface. It's a mess. The original factory caulk (not mine) had glued the two pieces tightly together and when it started hanging from that, it ended up pulling off the wallpaper on the half-moon plywood braces. There's also the fact that the strings running through the center of the screen have pretty much garroted my screen into three long strips. That's the very short version....

I have had a plan in mind and tonight I set pen to paper to see if I could solidify some sort of design. I think I have. It will be simple, diminutive by the current standard and very light. I'm ditching the moon-mounts on either side of the window and the new screen will fit tightly against the interior of the window itself. It'll be very simple, quick to open and close and lightweight. I'm completely discarding the stock screen/shade and all of its associated hardware before it falls all the way off and kills me some night.

I'll be doing this in three steps:
First, build the screen to fit with curve, length and width.
Second, make the screen mount slider (fixed frame attached to the trailer for the screen to slide up and down in.)
Third.....A puzzler. I've been boxed in on this thought experiment for awhile now because the screen will need to be a long curve as well as a rectangle. The curve will make it nearly impossible to both keep the screen frame square and help support the screen in the frame. I solved that problem tonight (in theory) and that will be something of an art project.

In the meantime, I'll start making up a complex radius bender for the screen frame and get that done. I'll do some experiments tomorrow on how tight of a radius I can bend an aluminum box frame and see how that goes. I've got he details worked out and think it should go quite straightforward. If my math is correct and I measured all of the various radiuses correctly, the top of the screen should come up, in and drop down just below my light valance and the knob on the ceiling fan. I did some radius patterns (you all know how much I LOVE my patterns) and things all look like they should clear just fine.

I've also got to pick up some tiny brackets to re-secure the two overhead shelves back to the wall where they terminate at the window. Now that I've removed the moon-pieces, the shelves are just hanging in space on that end. I have that worked out and will sandwich the brackets between the ceiling and the new screen frame.

Let's start with a "before" photo:

I don't anticipate this to take a great deal of time (with the exception of step 3) but there is lots to do.....
WilliamA

LuckyJ

I just can't wait to see how you do this. Love that window so much, it's been on my list simce I found out that bugs specialy noseehum could come like the window was open.

Absolutely following this.

WilliamA

Step one: Build screen....

Boom....Done.

The very, very short version here is that the screen is made up and the radius matches the new home I have for it. The cheesy center spreader bars and duct tape are only there to give it some rigidity and a bit of safety while I manhandle it around. It's also nice to have a few places to grab it for moving and testing. Once it's in the trailer, those will be gone. Now that I have the screen finished (for now) I will go out and spend some quality time with a skillsaw ripping all of the laminate pieces to make the frame. I need to make a waste laminate glue-up in order to get my radius correct for the gluing jig. The glue-up will have memory once the glue sets so I will need to make the radius jig smaller than the target radius. Once I pull the glue-ups out, they will relax to a target radius, plus or minus an inch of radius. I've no way to predict how close the glue-up will be once relaxed so it's make one and see. That'll take a couple of hours to make an 8 or so hours for the glue to set.

But first....Lunch...

WilliamA

WilliamA

Okay, I've gotten to a point where I can't get much further without waiting for the glue-up to dry. Let's review:

Here's a short version of the problem, exposed. In addition to the previously mentioned issues, the screen assembly was pulling down the ceiling paper and cabinets. Damage to the ceiling paper is repairable, but not without some putzing. Lucky for me, it's my scientific speciality..

There were several holes in the ceiling per side to hold the assembly up, none of them was holding anything.

Here's a quick view of how I made the screen frame:

Here's the "moon" filler piece I was talking about. It's the stock piece that goes between the stock screen and the wall. Now that all the parts are off of it, you can clearly see the two different radii. The curious thing for me was that the outer trailer wall radius was tighter than the inner one. The math worked out to something like a 34" radius for the stock frame and about a 30-31" radius for the trailer wall. I get it, but it was just weird to me and caused me to waste a lot of time thinking about how to use the longer radius, when the obvious answer was to get rid of it and its inherent problems. Once I got past that, the rest of it fell into place pretty quickly. I've pulled the remaining paper off the faces so I can more accurately use the radii.

I knew that I would not be able to use the "moons" for bending jigs as even if I got the screen channel bent as tight as I could, there would be some spring-back and growth. I cut another radius and laminated it up so I could coax the finished, relaxed screen channel into a very close approximation of the final needed curve. For bending, I used the laminated form and on the outside of the screen channel, I used a 1"X5/8" pine trim board I had on hand. The pine trim board is absolutely necessary to spread out the clamping force while bending. Even so, I had to go VERY gently with the clamps just to keep from crushing or kinking the screen channel pieces. Once bent, the screen fit's on the outside of the frame, not the inside. That's important. I bent the channels wild and cut them to length once I got the shape I needed. So that I didn't use too much force for clamping, I used the clamps to just put a bit of pressure on the piece, then lightly went over the top of the pine trim board with a hammer, just using light blows to coax the bend. Just a bit at a time, bend, check, repeat...

The running clamp isn't even tightened down. I just kept pushing it around the curve as I tapped on the frame. It took a bit of time, but went without incident.

Here's the bent frame piece sitting up against the ceiling. Once all of this is in place, I will be able to slide the screen up in the frame so I can access the window latches, then just slide it back down into place. For this foggy photo, I've got the frame pressed tight to the ceiling. Once the frame is up in place, the head end (top) of the screen will be down about 1/2" from the ceiling. It needs to be curved enough so that as it slides rearward, it misses the valance and, most importantly, the knob for the ceiling vent. If necessary, I can cut a bit off the knob, but I'd really like to use it without having to go that step. It looks like it will work well without further modification up there. Also, I want to be able to remove the screen out the top without having to take down the frame.

Here's the finished frame, minus the cheesy spreaders I've got taped in right now to keep things straight while building. Once all the building is done and the screen is up, I'm going to make a decorative insert to go inside the screen for strength and rigidity. That will take some time though.

Here's a comparison of the new frame radius and the old one. Don't let the length get you. It's flying long at this point. The finished frame is almost exactly the same size as the window and will sit directly over the black rubber window gasket.

Progress has come to a screeching halt for the next 10 hours or so while my glue sets up. I also screwed through all of the 5 layers of laminate with sheetrock screws and will leave them in for the remainder of the buildup. They do not protrude through the inside layer so no holes to fill there.

The glue-lam is 5 layers of 1/4" luan plywood. I chose luan over birch or oak as it is more pliable. (And cheap) The two outer layers are 1 1/4" wide by 1/4". The three inner layers are 3/4" wide by 1/4". The finish thickness of the entire assembly is 7/8". I really wanted a 3/4" finished thickness and "could" have gotten it, but that meant only 2 center layers. The screen fit into the 2 layer channel, but there just wasn't enough room left for me to be comfy. I'll do a drawing to show the finished cross section. I need to line the track with a soft, non-stick material for the screen to slide on and also keep out the bugs. I have the stick-on material for that and just need to wait for the final step to put it in.

I have all of the luan strips cut and am ready to get to gluing up the other side, but I've got only one set of (borrowed) clamps and only the one former, so it's sit and chew my fingernails while I watch the glue dry. In the meantime, I'll make a few more drawings, do some more close measuring and start patching the ceiling gack. For the mounting of the new frame, I plan to use screws run into the trailer ceiling frame where it goes around the window opening. I can get 4 beefy screws per side in there. That'll do.

Here's a really quick sketch of the laminate cross section.

More later....

WilliamA

BBsGarage

Have you thought of how to keep the light out?

WilliamA

@BBsGarage said:
Have you thought of how to keep the light out?

Bill,
Yeah, I've been thinking about that next step but, to be frank, It's down the road for me. I love the light. Streetlights, moonlight, stars etc. I have only ever used my shades for keeping out the hot sun in the afternoon or keeping in the heat when camping in sub-freezing temps. (They are surprisingly good at that) I have a couple of different designs rattling about for shade/privacy but as you know, Ole Hurricane (the horse) spends the day and night staring in the window in the form of my poorly installed vinyl window cover. I'll get to that and actually have some pretty interesting ideas. More research and fondling of materials is in order.

WilliamA

WilliamA

K. and Sprocket were laid up all weekend last with the dreaded-red-mogi and spent a couple days in a fistfight over who was going into the bathroom. I tended them as best I could until they were back in order, then started to believe that I'd dodged that particular vermin-bullet. Not so. At least we didn't have it all at the same time. So the next couple of days or so might be a bit quiet around here as I watch Slim Potatohead on YouTube.

I have, however, been getting things done. Here's an update on the laminated screen fabrication:

Bad news.....The first rib I laminated didn't work. Well....It worked fine, but the radius was just wrong, as in, too small. I could force it up into place but it was clear that the radius stress would make short work of my work. Sigh....

There's no way that I know of for the home handyman/hack to be able to anticipate how much "memory" laminated wood will have in advance. I knew that there would be some spring-back once I removed the clamps but was quite surprised to find that there was almost none. Perhaps the ends moved a quarter inch off of my bending form but that was that. I was also quite surprised to find how incredibly rigid the thing was. You'd have thought I was building chairs for Ikea. That thing is strong, hence, no spring to speak of. So have a beer, get out the thinking cap and start measuring for making another former with a larger radius. As I was looking at the one I made, it occurred to me that perhaps since the piece was so rigid and just that much too small I could simply use the too-small piece as the former to glue up the next one. I did some experiments and it showed me that once I laid the next 5 layers of 1/4" ply over the too-small one, the radius was pretty much out to where I hoped it needed to be. I glued one up last night late and went to bed. A quick check of the new radius this morning sans clamps proved to be "just right". I sallied through my condition and quickly glued up another. I've been letting the carpenters glue set for 5 hours before removing the clamps.

Here's my trio of laminates. The left one is the small one that I ended up using as the former for the other two. The two on the right are nearly perfect within less than 1/4" of radius and drop over each other like twins.

At the end of the day, there was really no way to anticipate the exact finish radius without experiment. Now that I'm on the downhill side of it, I find myself pleased that I didn't need to make 2 or 3 more to get it right.

Here's a fuzzy detail of the glue-up. I've started cleaning up the glue and will be rasping to basic shape, then sanding for awhile. I will get them mostly cleaned up and then mount them in the trailer to see how things line up. Once I'm satisfied of the fit, I'll cut them to length and glue up the end bits to join them. Lots of putzing, but I'm quite pleased so far.

WilliamA

WilliamA

More progress today:
I was able to work on the frame for awhile today. I got the basic length cut to fit and made up the top and bottom pieces. I bolted the frame together enough so I could start the initial fitting in place, then slid the screen in to see how close (or far off) I was before proceeding with the detail work.

The frame is in and held in place by 4 screws. As I suspected, the metal subframe for the trailer is just too thin to hold a screw. I used the O.E. screws that were in the O.E. screen assembly, but as soon as I put any pressure on them at all, they would just strip out of the aluminum. I had better luck with #8X32 TP machine screws, but they won't hold for long. I'll need to get some 3/16" rivnuts and sink them into the frame, then use screws to hold it all together. Now to find the rivnuts...

For my initial test-fit, I cut the bottom of the frame off to length but let the top fly long. I've since cut that to length. The total top length is exactly the length of the screen.

As I had hoped, the screen just clears the knob for the ceiling fan with a paper-width to spare. That's enough for now. Actually, it will clear with more room now that I've cut the straight ends off the frame. Total clearance looks to be about a 1/4" from the knob. I'll run with that for now...

Here's the radius fit against the trailer wall. I'm really pleased with how well that came out. Although I don't really feel like it will need it, I am going to put a topper-tape gasket in between the frame and trailer wall just to make sure the bugs are foiled.

Once I got all the bits checked and made sure that the screen slides up and down, (it does) I took it all back apart and spent the afternoon gluing up the bottom and top frame pieces and cutting in the finger joints. I'll glue it together tomorrow and then run to town to see if I can source some rivnuts.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

Nice work, still following!

WilliamA

Well, I have dozens of new photos to download and go through and a long post to write but I'm pretty much used up for the day. I'll just post some progress and get to a better explanation tomorrow. It's supposed to rain all day anyway, so it's going to be a good day to write and rest.

Here's where I'm at as of an hour ago:
These first 4 photos are the 95% finished frame. I have many detail photos and will be posting a bit of that, but for the most part, it's done with the major fabrication.

I blasted into St Paul, Mn this morning and picked up the Rivnuts I needed to do the install. I had glue drying anyway so use the time, right? I installed the #10X24 TPI Rivnuts and went back to sanding and finishing.
This one is just to the left of the passenger side shelf bottom corner. I had to pull the shelves because the Rivnut tool head was too wide to get in next to the shelf. No problem. Unlike poprivets, Rivnuts will NOT sandwich both the aluminum frame and the wallboard. They will just crush the wallboard and then spin in the hole. To do a proper job, you need to open up the wallboard around the head of the Rivnut so the tool will put it directly on the aluminum frame underneath. No worries. A few careful, slow spins with a 1/2" drill bit moved the wallboard out of the way leaving the aluminum frame underneath. Easy-peasy....

About suppertime, I hit the frame with stain, then went and ate, then came back out to see if the glued-up, stained-up, mash-up would actually fit with all the new holes and hardware. As it turned out, it did....

When I put the frame in yesterday for my initial test-fit, I immediately detested the square inside corners of the frame and knew I needed to do something to soften that up. I got out my protractor and scientific calculator and determined that if I projected the ray of the radius of the inside window curve out another half-inch it would equal the sum of 1/2 the diameter of a 1 quart Cottage Cheese container. Kemps....Of course. Small curd....dry if you can get it. Only a cretin would use a cheaper container for such un-frivolous dimensions.... I quickly cut up a couple of pieces and CA glued them in...

I needed to pull the shelves down in order to properly install the Rivnuts. When I pulled the passenger side shelf down, I found a gaping hole in the ceiling panel. Might as well fix it before I put the shelf back in place as long as it's down. Grrrrrr.......

There is work yet to do but it's functional and ready for a test in the next couple of weeks when I head out for the Great River Road. In between now and then, I'll pull it back out, put a coat of urethane on, stick the weatherstrip on the back and set it aside to dry for a day or so. While that happens, I need to spend some time in the trailer working to fix all the holes and tears and buggers and dings left over from the old one. I also need to add a couple of angle brackets to hold the overhead shelves up.

Oh yeah...The screen works great in there. Slides up and down very well. Can't wait to try it out down on the river.....
More later.

WilliamA

Sharon_is_SAM

@WilliamA, I prefer large curd, but to each his own😀. Nice work on the screen!

CampHub

Looking good @WilliamA

LuckyJ

When we talk about curd, I prefer the canadian cheddar squicky fresh cheese. But it come in a bag.

Looks good, as always!

WilliamA

Well here's the last of the photos for now. I've got everything out, gasketed, weather-stripped and back in again. I also did the final cut length of the screen frame and got that sorted out. I need to pick up a piece of outside corner in pine to put on the head end of the screen frame but otherwise am putting it to bed for now.

I'll just let the photos do the talking.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

Nice job!

Might really well replicate that for ourself.

Did you think of using noseehumm mesh since you were doing a new screen? I know that in my nexk of the would, this is what I would go with. And it would be a reason to go with this mod, being able to use noseehum.

WilliamA

@LuckyJ said:
Nice job!

Might really well replicate that for ourself.

Did you think of using noseehumm mesh since you were doing a new screen? I know that in my nexk of the would, this is what I would go with. And it would be a reason to go with this mod, being able to use noseehum.

Lucky,
Well, to be honest I just grabbed the closest (cheapest) roll of screen in the size I needed. I'm not sure my local Big-Box store has it although they probably do. In any case, putting it in would be no more difficult than putting in regular screen.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

William, probably available by the yard at a sewing supply store near you, as well as regular nylon screen. When I found out that they add it, I started using it for my window at the cabin. For a few summer weeks, w/o noseehum screens, I would not be able to open any window at the cabin or in the T@G.

This is how I can up with the noseehum screen socks that goes over the side window.

But until this mod of yours, could not figure out how to i stall it on the stargazer window.

WilliamA

I finished up the last piece of trim and got it put up.

YEAH!!!!!

WilliamA

LuckyJ

Does this act also as your handle to pull tye screen up?

WilliamA

It does work for that but I am putting on a proper handle at the bottom when I get around to it. 😀

WilliamA

BBsGarage

@WilliamA said:
It does work for that but I am putting on a proper handle at the bottom when I get around to it.
WilliamA

So how much do round-toits go fro these days?

WilliamA

I picked up a handle for the screen and put it in place.

Now it's really done... This time for sure...

WilliamA