Projects - Cockpit Screens

I got a little carried away with the cutting out of this one, but they came out pretty good. It's a little long, but worth it.

I started by cutting out an EXACTLY the size of the opening of each window. The one shown at the left is the port side. I had to use some duct tape to get the right size and shape. Next, I put the cardboard onto a piece of 1/2 plywood and traced the outline of the window shape. I kind of "lofted" about 1 inch inside and one inch outside of the traced line and ended up with a 2 inch wide frame the shape of the window, the center being the exact opening size. The picture at the left shows the cardboard template laying on the 2-inch frame. there is about an inch under the cardboard too.

Before cutting out the inside dimension (here's where I got a little goofy), I free-handed some silhouettes onto the inside edge. The starboard one is shown at the right. I cut out the inside with a combination of a drill (starter holes in the four corners) and a jigsaw. I used my trusty dremel tool with the spiral cutter to do the "hole" under the dolphin.

Next, I took the router and used a quarter-round bit on both the front and the back sides, both inside and outside edges. The closeup picture below shows the rounded edges. At first the quarter round bit looked like it was going to take too much material off, but it ended up looking O.K. anyway.

 

Next, on the back side (can you guess which side I did by mistake first?) of each frame, I routed a 1/8 inch channel in the center of the 2-inch frame all the way around. I screwed a "guide" to the router base and ran it all the way around the outside edge. This picture shows that routed groove.

 

The groove is then used just like a screen window frame for a house. You buy the fiberglass screen and a little strip of rubber at Home Depot and just push it in the groove. This "pushing in" process also automatically stretches the screen tight for you. Here is a scrap of each being pressed in so you can see how it works...

The next step was to make a way to hold it on the window of the cockpit. At the bottom of each of the screens I cut a pair of wood blocks the exact thickness of the vinyl trim stuff around the window. I put a tab of wood on top of the block to hook into the window opening. The advantage this connection method has is that it doesn't interfere with the operation of the interior sliding window.

At the top, after setting in the bottom "hooks", I needed a way to lock the screen in. On top of a single upper block, I put a plastic swivel piece (from some old vinyl mini blinds) to hold the screen in.

 

And finally, the screens are in! (click on the pictures for the full effect!)


All text, imaging, and formatting copyright 1999, 2000 Ray Henry / RCHDesigns