Tortuga Travelers: A Tale of Two Screens

Magnets are cool. They aren't too cool around memory cards or smartphones or computers or video screens, but otherwise they're a lot of fun. They can make most anyone want to know more about Physics. It's Magic that one a little piece of metal can make another little piece of metal spin and twist and jump off a table to attach to the first piece.

Living in a van is living in a metal box. Metal that reacts to Magnetism. Hmmm...

K&J Magnetics is The Bomb. They sell magnets of all shapes and sizes, and strengths. And the strengths are listed! Our initial foray into magnetics consisted of sampling Home Depot's offerings, which quickly proved to be pretty much useless. We found that we like the BYO42, a 2"x1/4"/1/8" bar that is easily sewn into a fabric pocket. It has a Pull Force of 10.34 lbs, enough to hold a lot of nylon fabric.

One of our goals was to be able to open the side and rear doors for flow through ventilation, with screens over both openings to keep the flying teeth out. We cut up a tent that we recently retired after 20+ years of use. For our first iteration Sharon went to a local shoemaker to sew some magnets in, but his long experience with leather turned out to be completely untranslatable to a thinner material.

Fortunately, our friend Barbara stepped up and offered to implement iteration 2! And she quickly proved to be well up to the task, delivering a reworked rear screen that is a vast improvement over the earlier version. It hangs lower over the bumper to better keep it from blowing open, and wider to allow us to attach the magnets and leave room to close the doors with it in place.

When Barbara went to re-implement the side screen, no one could find it! But we had another recently retired screen room that proved perfect for the side, giving us a zipper for making for easy entry and egress. It even has some ties if we want to just tie the opening open. And the magnets sewn into the fabric makes it easy to put up the whole shebang and keep it there.

We no longer are limited to Colorado and Wyoming, where there aren't enough mosquitoes and no-see-ums to be bothered by. The first test may well be our final road test next month down in St. Pete.