Dick Snyder wrote:
My wife wants me to make a shoji screen but I would really call it a
room
divider as it will be about 8-9 feet in width. It will be made up of
individual panels about 24" side. She wants it to have the area
inside the
frame of each panel covered in a fabric that won't let much light
through.
I'm trying to decide if the better way to stretch the fabric which
must look
nice on each side of the room divider would be over a solid piece of
maybe
1/4" plywood or if it would be better to do it over a rectangular
frame that
is empty in the middle (imagine the frame being made up of 4 1" wide
pieces.
The best way I think would be a solid piece of plywood but we both
worry
about weight. This room divider will not be up all the time but will
only be
put up when the space it is dividing needs to be closed off for some
temporary sleeping arrangements. I know the rectangular frame over
which the
fabric is stretched would be lighter but I wonder if it would be
strong
enough.

I can't find anything that gives me a clue by using google. I'm
guessing
that one or more of you have made something similar. What would you
advise?

TIA.

I made a set of 7 panels 24" wide by just short of 8' tall, sliding on
closet door runners. The frames are 3/4 x 1 1/2 clear pine, which I
milled a 1/4" groove in for the panels, which are in my case 1/4
masonite, painted white and sponge textured with white pearlescent
(faking rice paper, sort of). I worked nights and needed to cover a
sliding glass door to block light.
Each panel weighs about 25 lbs, if you used something like this, I
think your screen would be too heavy to move. How are you going to
attach the panels to each other? If you could find some hinge hardware,
something like the hinges on an old typewriter case, where there is a
release and a pin that half the hinge slides off of, you could break
down your screen to individual panels when storing it. Seems to me you
need something solid for a panel, 1/4 baltic birch would weigh a lot
less than the masonite I used, I just happened to have it lying around.
Spray 3-m glue would work to glue the fabric to the ply. Don't forget
to allow for the fabric when routing/dadoing the groove in the frame
parts. I used 3/4 x 1/4 slats for "rails" to form the shoji look,
applied with glue AFTER I painted the panels. Matter of fact, I painted
first masking off the glue area, then assembled the whole frame, so the
masonite really is holding the frame together.
Hope this helps
Gary

Dick Snyder