Custom Window Screens Part 1 - How to Build the Screen Frame

# How to Make a New Screen for Your Window: A Step-by-Step Guide

by Jeff from Home Repair Tutor

Hey everyone, it's Jeff with Home Repair Tutor, and today I'm going to explain to you how to make a new screen for your window. It’s pretty simple—you only need a few things, and it’s very straightforward. So let’s get started!

The first thing you need to do is make the frame. You can buy the frame at Lowe's or Home Depot; they're fairly inexpensive, maybe $15 or less. Along with that, you’ll also need screen frame corners, which are available at the same stores for around three or four dollars each. These corners will help you assemble the frame easily.

Now, let’s talk about measuring. The most important part of this process is measuring the width and height of the screen you need to make. Once you have those measurements, you’ll need to subtract 1 and 1/2 inches from both the width and the height to accommodate the screen frame corners. This step is clearly outlined on the instructions that come with the frame kit.

For example, in my particular case, the screen was 30 inches wide (and an extra e—probably a typo or something). Subtracting 1 and 1/2 inches from that gives me 28 and 5/8 inches. So I simply measure 28 and 5/8 inches, mark it with a pencil, and then use a miter box and a hacksaw to cut the screen.

One of the coolest things about these screen frame corners is that you don’t need to make a miter cut or a 45-degree angle cut. You can just cut them straight! It’s super easy, even if you’re not very experienced with tools. Once you’ve cut all four sides of the frame, you’ll have your basic rectangular shape ready to go.

Before I move on to joining the pieces together, let me show you what the finished screen should look like after you’ve joined the corners. It’s a bit strange that I’m showing you this before demonstrating how to put it together, but it’s important to understand what you’re aiming for.

Once all four pieces are cut and ready, you’ll need to join them using the screen frame corners. These plastic pieces fit into each end of the metal frame, essentially holding everything together. One crucial tip here is to make sure that the recess for the spline (the rubber piece that holds the screen in place) is facing toward you on all four sides. If you don’t do this correctly, you might have to take everything apart and start over, which can be frustrating.

Alright, now let’s get back to the process. After cutting all four pieces of the frame, the next step is to join them together using the screen frame corners. It’s almost like putting together a puzzle, but it’s way simpler—you just push the plastic corner piece into each end of the metal frame until they fit snugly.

Once you’ve got all four sides connected, you’ll have one complete picture frame that’s ready for the actual screen material. Now, here’s where the spline comes in. The spline is the rubber piece that goes into the recess we talked about earlier, and it helps hold your fiberglass or metal screen in place.

To install the screen itself, simply place it inside the frame and then add the spline to keep everything secure. It’s important to make sure that the spline is evenly placed around the entire perimeter of the frame so that the screen stays tight and doesn’t move around once installed.

And there you have it! You’ve just made a brand-new window screen from scratch. This process is especially handy if you already have an old screen lying around but notice a few holes or tears. Instead of patching it up, which might not hold for very long, you can replace the entire thing with this easy method.

So to recap: measure your existing screen (or where you want the screen to go), subtract 1 and 1/2 inches from both the width and height, cut all four pieces using a hacksaw, join them together with the plastic corners, add the spline, and then place your new screen material inside.

With just a few tools and materials, you can save yourself some money and have a perfectly sized replacement screen for any window in your home. I hope this guide helps you out, and if you have any questions or run into any issues while working on your project, feel free to reach out! Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more handy tips and tricks from Home Repair Tutor.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody it's Jeff with home repair tutor and today I'm going to explain to you how to make a new screen for your window it's pretty simple you only need a few things and it's very straightforward so the first thing that you need to do is make the frame and you can buy the frame at Lowe's or Home Depot they're fairly inexpensive maybe $15 or less to make a frame and then what you do is you buy these screen frame corners and again this is maybe like three or4 do at Lowe's Home Depot so I'm going to explain to you how to do this and we'll also be putting in the actual screen itself and that's probably one of the most important things that you learn from this video because many of you may have a screen already but um there might be a hole in it and you just want to learn how to fix the whole entire big piece instead of putting a patch on it so that's it let's get ready to go okay the first thing that you need to do is measure the width and the height of the screen that you need to make and then you need to take at 1 and 1/2 in off the width and 1 and 1/2 in off the height to accommodate the screen frame corners and that's part of the directions on this actual box so in my particular case the screen WID is 30 I measured it it was 30 and an e so subtracting 1 and 1/2 in gives me 28 and 5/8 so I'm simply going to measure 28 and 5/8 make a mark on the screen with a pencil I use a pencil because you can just wipe it off with your finger when you're done and then you use a miter box and a hacksaw to cut the screen like so and the cool thing about the screen frame corners is that you don't need to make a miter cut or a 45 Dee angle cut you can just cut them straight and then you put the screen frame corners on and join all four screen frame sides together as you can see it doesn't take very long to cut these it's very thin aluminum so this is going to be one side of my width okay of the actual frame so I need to make another one of these and then cut two sides that are going to make up the height of the screen frame all right everybody what I'm going to show you is what the screen should look like after you join them with the screen frame corners now it's a little bit odd that I'm going to show you this before I show you how to join them together but it's important to understand what you should be looking to accomplish before you actually get there so anyhow I have all four pieces of screen frame put together okay and here are the screen frame corners now when you go to put the framing together make sure that your recess for your spline the spline is the rubber little piece that you put in here that holds your actual screen together you want that spline recess to be on the inside for all four pieces of your frame that's what you need to accomplish before you put them together you need to realize that that this is what you're looking to to to get as an end result okay so this this is your end result and I hope that will help you understand this whole process okay everybody what we're going to do now is join the four pieces of screen frame together using these corner pieces it's basically almost like putting together a puzzle but a lot simpler you you just shove the piece of plastic into each end of the metal frame youve join all four together and now you've got one picture frame that you can put your fiberglass or metal screen into the one tip I have for you is make sure that when you do that before you put this corner piece in all four pieces are facing up such that the little recess is facing toward you that way you know when you have it together you'll be able to put your screen within that recess and then put your spline within that same space so hope that makes sense and uh it's kind of a big tip because if you put these pieces of framing together the wrong way you're going to have to pull them all back apart so that's ithey everybody it's Jeff with home repair tutor and today I'm going to explain to you how to make a new screen for your window it's pretty simple you only need a few things and it's very straightforward so the first thing that you need to do is make the frame and you can buy the frame at Lowe's or Home Depot they're fairly inexpensive maybe $15 or less to make a frame and then what you do is you buy these screen frame corners and again this is maybe like three or4 do at Lowe's Home Depot so I'm going to explain to you how to do this and we'll also be putting in the actual screen itself and that's probably one of the most important things that you learn from this video because many of you may have a screen already but um there might be a hole in it and you just want to learn how to fix the whole entire big piece instead of putting a patch on it so that's it let's get ready to go okay the first thing that you need to do is measure the width and the height of the screen that you need to make and then you need to take at 1 and 1/2 in off the width and 1 and 1/2 in off the height to accommodate the screen frame corners and that's part of the directions on this actual box so in my particular case the screen WID is 30 I measured it it was 30 and an e so subtracting 1 and 1/2 in gives me 28 and 5/8 so I'm simply going to measure 28 and 5/8 make a mark on the screen with a pencil I use a pencil because you can just wipe it off with your finger when you're done and then you use a miter box and a hacksaw to cut the screen like so and the cool thing about the screen frame corners is that you don't need to make a miter cut or a 45 Dee angle cut you can just cut them straight and then you put the screen frame corners on and join all four screen frame sides together as you can see it doesn't take very long to cut these it's very thin aluminum so this is going to be one side of my width okay of the actual frame so I need to make another one of these and then cut two sides that are going to make up the height of the screen frame all right everybody what I'm going to show you is what the screen should look like after you join them with the screen frame corners now it's a little bit odd that I'm going to show you this before I show you how to join them together but it's important to understand what you should be looking to accomplish before you actually get there so anyhow I have all four pieces of screen frame put together okay and here are the screen frame corners now when you go to put the framing together make sure that your recess for your spline the spline is the rubber little piece that you put in here that holds your actual screen together you want that spline recess to be on the inside for all four pieces of your frame that's what you need to accomplish before you put them together you need to realize that that this is what you're looking to to to get as an end result okay so this this is your end result and I hope that will help you understand this whole process okay everybody what we're going to do now is join the four pieces of screen frame together using these corner pieces it's basically almost like putting together a puzzle but a lot simpler you you just shove the piece of plastic into each end of the metal frame youve join all four together and now you've got one picture frame that you can put your fiberglass or metal screen into the one tip I have for you is make sure that when you do that before you put this corner piece in all four pieces are facing up such that the little recess is facing toward you that way you know when you have it together you'll be able to put your screen within that recess and then put your spline within that same space so hope that makes sense and uh it's kind of a big tip because if you put these pieces of framing together the wrong way you're going to have to pull them all back apart so that's it\n"