screen door thickness... confusing

[CountryGuy]

Judy,

I don't think they are, but bout the time I say that, someone who really knows will happen along and say it is! HAHA

Where is OntMont when I need him!????

We bought them out of a bin type hardware store, so many in a bin, you take however many you want, I did not notice if there was a label or what it might have been.

That said, this would be hard put to penetrate a wall which I believe you would need for a mirror. The mirror clips I have seen have a metal screw that goes thru a small hole in the clip and then into the drywall or whatever your wall is made from.

So, I am gonna hazard a guess that these are specifically for screen doors.



Carol

[sreigle]

I think this is what you used, Carol. And John. Or very close to this.

http://www.doityourself.com/invt/u627547

They call them storm door clips.

See another Montana or Mountaineer on the road? Flash lights twice, it might be one of us!
Steve Reigle (pronounced Regal)
Fulltiming since 3/21/03
'03 3295RK
'05 Ford F250 SD Lariat CC SB 6.0L PSD/TS FX4 4x4

Our RV Travels (now Firefox-compatible)

[CountryGuy]

Yep, Steve, that looks like em. Hard to tell from the photo on that page, what materials those were made of, the ones we purchased were ALL plastic. No metal parts. But, that is VERY close!

Carol

[CountryGuy]

Ok, Trying to correct all my silly posts here, by doing a search I found OntMont's post, as follows:

"Just a note on clear plastic panels. There are two types of plastic that are available for this. One is Lucite or Plexiglas, those are brand names for acrylic plastic, the other is Lexan, that is the brand name for polycarbonate plastic. Polycarbonate is much tougher than acrylic. I have seen acrylic panels crack, so if you are going to all the work of doing this, my suggestion would be to spend a bit more, and get the polycarbonate. (available at Home Depot etc.)
As for fastening them on, you can buy little clips that clamp on to the inside edge of the screen opening. They are called "screen clips" and are available at Ace Hardware in either white aluminum or nylon, ours are nylon to prevent scratching. The clips allow you to remove the panels without leaving any trace that they were ever there.
One final suggestion, when you cut out the panels, round off the corners slightly to avoid cutting into the screen material.
All that said, acrylic plasic will certainly work well, just be aware that acrylic can crack if mis-handled."

Now, Al says he is positive that we did not use Lexan, but that what we had was a Lexan "like" material. We did buy it at Lowes, he says go in there and look for the most expensive, thinest stuff that is like Lexan in the store. Ours came with a medium blue protective covering that peals off. (He just surfed into Lowes web site and could not locate it there.)

I was asking him about the cutting part of the project and he said he started out with that scoring tool, said he worked his &*^$ off, scoring and scoring, and more scoring, and then he still did not get a clean break. So, he went to the Dremel with cut off wheels for ALL the cuts, even the long straight ones. He got some "burn" on the edges, which actually was black, from the heat of the cutting wheel. (as mentioned before, you are gonna need a number of those cutting wheels, they are thin and heat up and shatter, but they did the job for him.)

He took a rasp and gently ran it over the entire edges and took the black right off. Also rasp to get around the edges and sides where he had cut just a little long/large so that he could adjust. Better to be too long/large at first than tooooooo short, specially with the price of this stuff.

As far as the expense, we each spend our coin our own way. We did not want velcro around the door, another personal choice, although I'll bet that works right nice! We wanted the rigid clear thin product held on the door with those little screen clips. There are more ways to do this job, we just liked the way OntMont did his, and we duplicated it in our own way. OntMont, I believe cut his with a scoring knife and had no trouble. Al did NOT like the scoring knife approach. I think I mentioned that Al tried a jig saw at first, and that was really a disaster for us.

Now, that is about as clear as mud, eh??

It was not a 5 minute project, but ole Carol SURE LOVES THAT STORM!!

Carol

[CountryGuy]

And, one more, then I think I have more than covered this subject, (SIGHHH )

Al found the tag for the plastic, here ya go

DURAPLEX by Plaskolite
Impact Modified Acrylic
.08" (came in sheet 30 X 36)

100 times stronger than glass
easy to cut (ha ha ha ha, ole Carol's comments)
10 year limited warranty against yellowing
meets ANSI Z97.1, UL 94HB and CC2 Plastic (have no idea what that means)
Listed in ICC ED ER-6042 (DUHHH????)

visit www.plaskolite.com/downloads.htm for fabrication information

(Sometimes it pays to be a pack rat, he had this stashed behind a work bench, just found it)

Good luck to all of ya doing this project, as I said, we really love ours, the rigid plastic suits our needs and wants, likes, etc.

Now, lets see how it holds up after a few years of use.

Cheers, Carol

[Lije Baley]

We did our storm door in July with Bronze tinted plexiglass. It does not come in the thiner thicknesses that the clear does, but we love the privacy and it matches the windows. I used the mirror clips, but found I needed metal ones around the slider because of the increased tension. (The plastic ones kept breaking when I tightened them up) Ours is on the outside of the screen and gives our Monty a classy look when the door is open. I also had to apply clear dot spacers under the clips to prevent vibration.
I made a heavy duty paper template and took it to a local Plastic Manufacturer. After they cut the pattern I still had to use the dremmel tool on some of the edges to fine tune the fit.
We love this forum for all the ideas that have improved our Montana and made it more comfortable!

Bill and Mariana McCamy
'05 F-250 Lariat 6L PSD
'05 2955RL
Woodland, CA

[PartyCrashers]

We did the plexiglass screen door also. Did the same thing about buying from Lowes and Home Depot. Bought the little cutting tool...forget all that! Thanks to MandDontheroad for giving us information of a "plastic store" in Sacramento, called Taps Plastic. Took our screen door off, took it to the store. They measured, cut the plexiglass, and charged us $45.00 for the whole door (Including the slider piece, and one extra piece of plexiglass for the bottom). Check your area for stores that deal in plexiglass. It is much easier and better looking (especially when they rounded the top corners to match the screen door) and CHEAPER then doing it yourself.

Kevin and Denise
Trailer: 2004 Not a Montana,that's why we are "Party Crashers"
2005 Silverado HD Crew Cab

"Happiness in a RV is a Full Tank of Gas, and a Empty Holding Tank!"

[Dustytuu]

We are in the process of installing our plexiglass. We have the bottom and middle piece in. Lowes cut the top piece wrong so we have to take it back today and get another piece cut. They said this won't cost us. Had to order the clips. No place around here had them. Checked with Home Depot and Lowes. Some hardware stores too. Ordered from the site that Steve posted. We bought some little metal clips that will work until we get the plastic clips. The metal ones were not really big enough. Some in the package were but not all. Strange!
Our storm door should be finished by rally time. The corners are not going to be fun!!
We bought same kind of plexiglass that Carol and Al have.

Don finished the electric switch inside for the hot water heater yesterday. Now we have one with a light on it, for "on."

Dusty & Don ... Two spoiled schnauzers and a Maine Coon cat. 2500 Dodge Diesel 2003,SLT,
Bedsaver, Doran tire pressure moniter.
2004 Montana 3295. Fireplace,Washer/dryer,2 air conditioners.


http://photobucket.com/albums/y250/Dustytuu/

[sreigle]

Maybe at the rally Don could show me how he wired this switch? I'd like to do the same.

See another Montana or Mountaineer on the road? Flash lights twice, it might be one of us!
Steve Reigle (pronounced Regal)
Fulltiming since 3/21/03
'03 3295RK
'05 Ford F250 SD Lariat CC SB 6.0L PSD/TS FX4 4x4

Our RV Travels (now Firefox-compatible)

[Dustytuu]

Steve
he said Ok. He said it is not hard to do. He can show you what kind of switch to get too. We had a toggle switch but couldn't tell if it was up or down unless we got down on our hands and knees but now we have the light.

Dusty & Don ... Two spoiled schnauzers and a Maine Coon cat. 2500 Dodge Diesel 2003,SLT,
Bedsaver, Doran tire pressure moniter.
2004 Montana 3295. Fireplace,Washer/dryer,2 air conditioners.


http://photobucket.com/albums/y250/Dustytuu/

[sreigle]

Thanks!

See another Montana or Mountaineer on the road? Flash lights twice, it might be one of us!
Steve Reigle (pronounced Regal)
Fulltiming since 3/21/03
'03 3295RK
'05 Ford F250 SD Lariat CC SB 6.0L PSD/TS FX4 4x4

Our RV Travels (now Firefox-compatible)

[mmrxboss]

I have done this using the sheet goods from Home Depot. I used the special cutting knife they sell and found that it worked fine. I found that the screen door was easier to work on when I removed it from the trailer and laid it flat on my work bench (top of table saw). I placed an aluminum straight edge on the plastic at the score line and clamped it in place. The score line was made using the knife and then the plastic was snapped at that line. I used 220 grit sand paper on a hand
held block sander pad and cleaned up the edges of the plastic. The sander also handled the rounding of the corners.
I drilled and used different clips - wish that I had seen this post as theis style clip appears to be a cleaner install.

We really like being able to have the Monty door open and still keep the weather outside.


John & Kristi Elam
'03 Chevy 2500HD Duramax Crew LB with The Edge power chip!
AMSOIL Dual Oil Filter System
AMSOIL Transmission Fluid
'04 Montana 3650RK