The Better to See You With

 

The screens in the Boles were all pretty well intact but the metal had rusted so I decided to replaced them. I did a little research and found that you can't use the typical materials that are used on window screens today (ie fiberglass) because it needs to crimp into a small channel. There's no bead to hold it in place.

Wanting to avoid rusted screens I looked into stainless steel, but it's incredibly expensive. So I decided to try aluminum. I'd read that it wouldn't crimp properly, but I thought it was worth a try since it's only about $10 for enough material to cover all the windows.

You can choose a wide variety of options like color, but I chose a dark color that wouldn't reflect so would be easy to look through. It was readily available on Amazon. It might be available at larger big box stores as well (although our local Home Depot didn't have it).

With the Air-O-Lite windows you need to remove the open/close mechanism to remove the screen. It's easy enough, a few screws and two cotter pins that holds the sliding mechanisms to the windows. Once you get the screen frame out you can simply pull up a corner and remove it. Don't discard it just yet, you'll need it later.

After you get the old screen off you can clean up the frame if it needs it (mine did). Then you cut the replacement to size and jam it under the lip of the frame to hold it in place. It's easy but there are a couple things I learned: 1) get a screening wheel; 2) carefully cut the screen down a single row with tin snips or similar tool. The screening wheel makes it easy and has a sufficient radius so that the wire doesn't break. And if you cut across rows you end up with a lot of "threads" hanging loose.

It seems odd, but the next step is to cut holes in the new screen! The Air-O-Lite window opening mechanism goes through the screen, so you need to cut a slit for it to go through. Use the old screen as a template to cut the slit. I placed the old screen on top of the new and used a utility knife to carefully cut a slit in the screen.

Once this is done you can reinstall the screen. I chose to take the opportunity to clean up the window mechanism that you have to remove to get the screen out. It's a piece of stamped steel so it's likely a bit rusty too. I cleaned them up, sprayed them with some primer, and then sprayed a couple coats of "aluminum" spray paint on them. Probably won't last long, but it looks good now.