Replies

1. 
   jackplane | Oct 14, 2004 11:04pm | #1

   Thinned white glue, or thinned yellow glue for a darker shade, should give offer a little more strength than lacquer which is brittle. In this way, the glue acts as sizing.

2. 
   KeithNewton | Oct 15, 2004 07:07am | #2

   I used paper in the first screens that I made. It looked great but only took a un-attended child about 10 seconds to tear them all out while a realtor was showing the house..

   After that I ordered some material from Japan Trading Co. in San Francisco.

   When I moved into my current studio 20 years ago, I made them for the front windows which are 24' long. they still look good, and none of them have been torn. It looks like shoji, but is a lot like lamp-shade material. I'll bet you should find lots of that kind of material on Google.

   To answer your question though, I thought you were to use watered down white glue. You might try gluing the paper onto the shade material if you don't like the other suggestion. good luck

1. 
   Jrobert | Oct 16, 2004 12:54am | #3

   Thanks for the suggestions. The reinforcing idea sounds good to me. We'll give it a go.

   Bob

3. 
   jackiechan | Oct 16, 2004 06:19am | #4

   Bob,

   You are looking for Shoji-Gami paper.  This is a traditional material used in making Japanese partitions and screens.

   Lee Valley actually sells a roll of this paper for use with their Japanese calligraphy set.  It is 11" x 60'.  http://www.leevalley.com/gifts/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=2&page=45108&category=4,104,45468

   You should also look for a 0.45mm thick laminated rice paper.

   Do a search for Shoji screen manufacturers in your area, you should be able to purchase paper from them, or point you in the right direction.

   Dan Kornfeld, Owner/President - Odyssey Wood Design, Inc.

1. 
   yotonyb | Oct 16, 2004 07:33am | #5

   I completed a project earlier this year for a downtown hotel that called for a series of 10 shoji screens each 8'x8' overall, made up of three 32"x8' panels connected with bidirectional hinges. I couldn't use paper (fire code, durability) so I used a transluscent fiberglass fabric. However, unattended children aren't the only problem. Banquet staff, exhibit contractors, musicians, inebriated banquet guests, sober banquet guests, and any of a host of others are responsible for the callbacks to repair torn and punctured fabric.

   I've toyed with a couple of solutions, but the best one is to add a piece of thin transluscent acrylic plexiglass to cover the entire back. While it would increase the weight by about 15%, it would also add rigidity while making the fiberglass fabric nearly puncture-proof.

   Here's one resource in the Chicago area for the fiberglass fabric...

   http://www.eagerplastics.com/shojiscreen.htm

   tony b.