The window screens that came with our Shasta were a mix of fiberglass and aluminum, and a few had holes in them. Over the summer, we always tried take some repair work home with us, and replacing the screens was a perfect project. The windows were lying along a wall of the barn, and we piled them up in the back of the car in a few trips. The window on the door needed replaced too, and we just barely managed to fit it in and close the hatchback. We took the windows home in batches because there are quite a few of them in the Shasta, and we don’t have the biggest car!
We measured the width of the rubber spline that held the old screens in place (most of the windows on this 1972 Shasta 1400 were .125″) and then calculated the total amount of area we needed to screen. We decided that we wanted the classy shine from aluminum screen to complement the other shiny new parts, and we picked up a roll of screen at the hardware store. Removing the old screen was quick and painless, and after a few failed attempts, we became decently adept at installing the new screen. It’s important to leave some slack in the screen to prevent it from getting pulled too tight when the spline is pressed down– a couple of our early attempts were so tight that they warped the frame and had to be redone.
This self-feeding mouse worked pretty well for installing the spline, but by the end, it was completely worn out.
Make sure you measure the spline width of all of your windows before you go to the store if you’re redoing all of the screens on a vintage trailer. The spline for the window on the main door was slightly smaller than the spline for all of the other windows, and if you measure everything first, you can save yourself a second trip to the hardware store.
1972 Shasta 1400 