On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 20:54:22 +0800, the infamous "Royston Vasey"
scrawled the following:

Once in place the screen springs back quite a bit, I still need some
urethane - maybe sika 191, 293 ?? The black marine stuff anyway, that
works
really well on most things. The screen is a shield over a humidity
sensor -
to stop fingers and look nice more than anything else. I don't think there
is a way to eliminate the folds and extra mesh / cloth. The cloth doesn't
want to stretch enough so a degree of folding results.

Have you tried a press in the shape of those tongs? Place screen cup
over mandrel and compress vigorously with tons of force to 'set' the
folds tighter.

I don't have much in the way of machinery so I've made do with what I have.
The wire is 316 stainless and is quite "springy". An arbor press is on my
wish list (along with a mill, guillotine, panbrake..........)

Got a 1T arbor press? It might do the trick, but you'd still need
dies.


Alternatively, have you thought of just using a disc of screen and a
slightly longer piece of PVC, dadoing in the flat screen piece? You
could even use a heftier screen gauge to keep fingers from damaging
it.

I can't quite visualise what you mean.

Think flat water faucet screen shape, glued into a dado in the end of
the pvc fitting.


I've tried a few different
arrangements, the one I have come up with seems to be the best in terms of
being simple to manufacture with the tools I have to hand.

OK. Then maybe the next best thing would be to use a stainless hose
clamp to better smooth out the wrinkles over the arbor. That in
itself may make insertion into the pvc fitting easier.

--
In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are
needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And
they must have a sense of success in it.
-- John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism, 1850