wood for storm/screens

[Manalto]

I wish. Last winter, it stayed in the low 20s for several days and it was 17° one night and I spent a while under the house (it sits on piers) with a heat gun aimed at the water pipes. That seems like nothing in the northern US and Canada, but with no insulation and (still) unrestored windows, it gets chilly inside. This winter has been mostly mild so far.

[heartwood]

james, I would not prime before the pocket holes...I would prime the cut ends (end grain) prior to assembly though...

[phil]

cedar is light rot resistance is good but a bit soft , you are painting anyway your wood choice won't show . I'd use fir or oak because it's strong but it doesn't really matter. I wouldn't use pine or junk lumber from the big box stores. P/t isn't treated except near the surface.

myself I'd reclaim some old growth fir, just look of a nice clear vertical grain board to trim to size. use lumber from an old door if you have an abundance of old doors. You can get 2x4 or 2x6 at a lumberyard and trim to suit. .. just pick the pile for some clear ones, You don't want knots. If your lumber is damp then let is season to your environment before use to prevent warping

I'd do mortise and tenon joints on the corners and use dry wood that isn't going to warp after you are finished. Its important they stay flat so don't use green lumber.
a retailer that caters to cabinet shops they will offer different species and you can get 5/4 or whatever you like. since your plan is to paint dont spend on pricey lumber, save the good stuff for where it will show.
marine plywood could work if you dont mind using that it's dimensionally stable and can be painted. I prefer solid lumber. dont use cheap plywood that will de-laminate. dont; go buy fresh lumber or stuff stored outside without paying attention to moisture or you'll do a nice job only to see it develop a twist.

If you want to save money watch Craigslist free, you can often get free lumber to re-use for little projects like this. I like finding old lumber that' sat around because then it's done most of it's shape shifting and I would rather reclaim where I can. old bed rails or whatever, old doors are usually nice lumber if it isn't being painted over. I almost never spend for small stuff If I want more I order rough cut slabs from a small mill and season it myself.. that saves some cost but takes time to dry properly. Ive had uck finding fir that was bought some 50 years ago and stored but never used so keep your eye open and you'll find some good stock for these sorts of projects. some reclaim old barn lumber and such. sometimes people pull old fir joist and stuff out of old buildings. If you have an old house parts place they may have lumber that's suitable at a good price.


If you go to a lumberyard and check the fir , decking comes in 5/4 sometimes too.. sometimes you get lucky on quality. even if you look at the D grade pile you can find boards with nice grain but maybe a knot you have to cut out to avoid it.. the older lumber tends to be of better quality which is another reason to recycle.
the problem with lumberyard is they don't often have well seasoned lumber , time of year makes a difference. I don't know about there but here HD has the worst lumber available Its all white lumber and real crap.
old flooring might work if you dont mind the thickness

If you dont own a tablesaw or if doing mortice and tennons on the corners worries you , you can use screws and pegs and things or use metal on the corners, you can even use wiggle nails but they aren't really strong. Best if you ave a tablesaw just cut M ant T joints and it'll be stronger. you dont need fancy. If your lumber is pricey you can do a test out of pine to check your joinery setup for the corners. Its possible to get the M and T a little out of square and result in something not flat.

you could cut a groove to trap the glass in, then if you break a pane it means disassembly or you can bed the glass with putty. you could captivate the glass with a wood strip but then you have a thin piece involved. myself I'd just captivate the glass and maybe run off some extra stock in case you break one. once you have the setup you can run off as many as you like quite quickly so you may want to cut extra stock to your profile size if you have others to do.
the tenons can easily be cut just by raising the blade 1/3 the thicknes of stock and making multiple cuts to hog out the piece. The mortice can be cut by turning the piece upright and following it with a push block that is square. If doing that freehand with just a block makes you nervous you can use a jig like this , this is safer especially if you aren't too comfortable with the first method.
here's a video to give you an idea. in this case he's made a simple jig.
you can get commercially made jigs but you don't need that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC3YRR52D_w

I'd go a tad oversize before the glue up, then trim the edges and that will take any teeny bit of out of squareness in your glue up out of the picture. really it's twisting you have to be careful of. you could get away with lap joints but I wouldn't use miters. If you want to get fancy you can use molding cutters to do a profile but I wouldn't bother. just knock off any square edges before paint. you can run a router around it if you want an ogee or some sort of profile for fanciness.

also before you trim up , see if the windows are square or not. You might see some small discrepancies. If the hole isn't quite square then make it fit. I'd just check corner to corner or throw a square on it before you start so that you know.

if you prefer you can use a router to cut the mortise and tenons or if you prefer you can cut the tenons with the wood flat against the saw rather than upright. I'd cut the mortises upright the way he shows.

If I had lots to do I'd use his method but mount three blades so it can be done in one cut and then the slots will all be exact. what I do is put thin washers made from coffee can lids between the blades to adjust the width of the slot accurately for consistency.

remember to mark which side of each piece goes to the fence or you'll see discrepancies due to minor variation in stock thickness or minor stock warpage. ( normalization) If your blade is not upright at exactly 90 degrees then you'll end up with a frame that is not flat. at worst if you have a loose fit just take some thin wood and glue it in to cover your error. I'd cut all my slots first then you can adjust the fit by raising or lowing the blade a tad. aim for them to fit a little tight then sand a little to get them to fit.

If you are at all worried about your stock supply use some cheap pine , make a frame, then on the second attempt you'll fine tune your methods.

you could choose other methods this is how I would do it. maybe peg the corners with dowel so that it cant; come apart after you get it glued up with the glass installed. If you don't involve metal parts you won't get staining from the reaction or from rust but if you are painting anyway it'll still last quite a while with paint on it.

You dont really need metal but your method might reflect your comfort level. You can use the these jigs of you prefer. It's a bit mickey mouse but it'll work. not nearly as strong as a M and T joint. even a lap joint is better than that.

https://www.kregtool.com/store/c13/kreg-jigsreg/

To hold them in I like the traditional things that twist and lock it in place. some storms have a hole so it doesn't get damp between. you can always add a hole for that little bit of venting you need to happen.

some of the acrylic is quite flat and looks a lot like wavy glass. Im thinking of using that and making them thick to stop car noise. glass might scratch less and it's probably a lot cheaper. the acrylic is very light if you do take them in and out. the old plexiglass sort of went milky but Ive seen some recent installations using acrylic sheet and it might be ok. you could always ask a glass shop to give you info. some areas might have issues with blowing sand and that would probably scratch them.

[Manalto]

cedar is light rot resistance is good but a bit soft , since they are inside and you are painting anyway your wood choice won't show and it wont; rot. I'd use fir or oak because it's strong but it doesn't really matter. I wouldn't use pine or junk lumber from the big box stores. P/T isn't for indoor use. .

My plan for the screens is to hang them outside the windows, in the traditional way.

[phil]

right I caught that as I was editing as you responded.
I made some suggestions on how I'd like to go about it. You can vary of course but thought I'd share some ideas on the joinery etc.

I have some I want outside but then I want them to be able to tip out at the bottom and pivot near the top so I can open my doublehung windows. I also have some casement windows that swing out so if I do storms they will need to be inside. maybe there is merit in nailing them in if you are away long periods. its possible to trap yourself in a fire that way too. if they are glass you could break them. the acrylic is tough so can add security.

[Ireland House]

As for how we use and hang our screens, Mike figured out a way to hang them from the inside using a cleat at the top and a hook and eye at the bottom. This works well for use as we are dealing with 3 and 4 stories. The screen frames are full window so we can use the double hungs top and bottom. It's amazing how many people around here do not realize you should open both the top and bottom window. The storms will all be glass, as we live in farm country and any acrylic get scratched way to easily ( lots of gunk in the air at harvest and planting ). The storms will have more than one pane, depending on where the window itself is broken. The goal is to not see that it is more than one pane from the inside. He said he would rather have to replace a smaller piece of glass if something does get broken or cracked. Storage is not a problem in this house as we have a huge attic as well as a dungeon. He used poplar in his first windows, and was told later that that was a bad idea, so this is why we are looking for advice on wood.

[phil]

probably more than you wanted, but here is a good document about wood decay. the higher numbers rot faster. it shows yellow poplar as 4- not good.
the heartwood is the dead part of the tree, the core. It doesnt' have as good rot resistance. and It shows how the parts closer to the ground have better rot resistance.

there is a huge list there of wood types. of course you are probably limited to what is available.
there are other properties to consider, strength. some wood like oak is strong in length.. others split more easily, some have different bending characteristics.
If you were to use the Kreg jig and screws you would want to pre-drill some types to prevent cracking and others could take having screws mashed into them without cracking. if the wood is very dry it will crack more than if it's green.

I use fir a lot, It says here that the new growth is as good as the old growth, I guess because it has wider growth rings. so less of the dead heartwood? Normally wood that is fine grained is more sought after. I had the opportunity to work on a machine where the engineers were crushing different chunks of fir and collecting data about the crush strength of various samples. they use the data for things like figuring out spans and data about how much wood is needed for a certain span and load.

It surprised me that the pieces with wide growth rings were just as crush resistant as the fine grained ones.

the list is a bit daunting but there is an index and you can probably do a word search if you save the file.

some of the places that sell hardwoods for cabinetmaking get import lumber at fairly reasonable rates. Ive been getting 3x3 posts which are a very hard wood used in crating rock slabs that come from china, so the wood is imported and the guy that gives it away is happy for me to load my trailer. It burns like coal. I took a sample to the wood shop and they noted that some tables and things that must have come from china were of a similar wood type. its very hard to ID without question but they said they think it is rubberwood.

I guess some of the trees grown in the tropics have a higher bug resistance than ones in cold climates.

In the end it just needs to last a reasonable time of course. no point trying to make everything last 300 years.. because we won't be here to care. as I get older, the less the longevity of the wood worries me

we get this Japan network here on TV, comes from satallite. Its got some great documentaries. I was watching one about them building the old houses the traditional way. they use thatch roofs and keep the fire going and that soot helps the wood last.. then they said they prefer to cut the wood under the full moon , full moon wood lasts longer .. ok it gets a bit wiggy but it's still interesting. They have some interesting ancient customs about the moons.

I booked my holidays this year around the moons. not for any strange customs ( but work people won't see me go through that wolf stage lol )

I drew a line across the calendar, neat how it made a diagonal line so I booked a week near each full moon. I love it in the summer when the moon is out. everything is more active.

http://owic.oregonstate.edu/sites/defau ... bility.pdf

[Casey]

Mahogany or Spanish cedar. Mortise & tenon joints.
Casey

[phil]

Mahogany or Spanish cedar. Mortise & tenon joints.
Casey

with mahogany there is african mahoany that has a lighter color, much cheaper. Ive got a nice 20" x 20' knot free plank of Honduran mahogany that I would use only for fine furniture making because it is expensive rare and sought after. My dad made some beautiful furniture made of it and I have some of the posassium permaganate that was used as sort of a dye. It gives it a darker color much like walnut.
I think my father referred to the african mahogany as gaboon mahogany. Its lighter in color and probably more suited for this due to price.

Some lumber has an attached status of being frowned upon due to irresponsible forestry practices of particular locations.

[Manalto]

Mahogany or Spanish cedar. Mortise & tenon joints.
Casey

I sure do like the idea of mortise and tenon joints better than screws. A router table would be a worthwhile investment for a project of 15 windows, I think. Looking at videos, it seems like a pretty straightforward process. Do you think it's a project that could be tackled, with a little bit of practice, by a complete novice?