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.

Dick Snyder


Hi Dick,

When we lived in San Francisco, I had a Japenese carpenter build us
some authentic shoji screens to cover a sliding glass door and as a
face frame for an entertainment center.

He used well dried Bass wood. The screen part was a very thin but
strong fiberglass sheet, it looked exactally like real rice paper, but
you could windex it and wipe the dust off.

He designed it so the back side of each panel was a small frame itself
held in place by screws (into the larger outside frame) so we could
replace the fiberglass if it ever got damaged.

I top mounted it on a sliding track which worked really well.

This was in 1998, so I don't have any receipts anymore, but I'll dig
around.

The carpenter had his shop in South San Francisco.

rob