Alternative Glazing Idea #2:Wax Over Fiberglass Screen...

So, I was looking into screening in our front porch.
Its pretty strait forward and in expensive,except for the dept of making me you sad.

So now I'm looking into screening in my back porch.
Its pretty strait forward and in expensive.
And i thought about extending the season by adding glass, which requires more everything, or plastic which is temporary and annoys the wife.
So, I thought, what if we could close the holes in the screen?
Clear paint would be permanent, but that might be ok, if I was willing to swap out the painted screen for un painted screen once season.
Silicone works, I've brought this up before:
Alternative Glazing Idea #1
Back then I was worried about flammability, not so much anymore.
But I am pretty sure I wont want to wrangle  rolls of screen, glazed or otherwise.

Green houses with ridged glazing use soap to temporarily block out some of  the sun during the summer.
Soap comes off with water, that's no good.

What is a clear, water proof coating that can be removed in some simple manner?
Wax.

Ideally it would rub or spray on, and a hair dryer, steamer or heat gun would melt it off, without damaging the screen!

Like a lot of my great ideas, this may never be tested, but at least I can talk about it here, and that gives me some satisfaction.

Interesting idea... I feel like it would fail in cold windy weather, or extremely hot weather... maybe 'failing' in hot weather is a feature, actually!

I am glad you are no longer worried about flammability, as it sounds very flammable!

I tried to stencil paint onto a screen, epic fail. I think wax would look really messy, so try it out on a framed piece of screen before you decide.  

Having spent many decades trying to do things inexpensively, cheap, or clever, I have found it is generally better to do things right the first time. One of the problems with make do and make shift is that you will be constantly dealing with fixing it. On most farms, time is not something you want to waste.

P.S. I have many dozens of wood framed 6'x4' greenhouse glass windows. You can have as many as you want if you feel like driving up to Richfield (between Cleve. & Akron). You can see what they look like if you go to my website ~ www.ohiofarmmuseum.com ~ and scroll a l-o-n-g way down to '"New" greenhouse' on Jan. 25, '14.

In my experience anything you could use to "weather proof" screen material will be permanent and trying to remove it will end in the destruction of the screen.
I'd look into ways to build "storm windows" that can be put in place and then removed for summer. Our porch will be done this way using hook and eye fasteners to hold the windows in place but will still be easy to remove and store.
I'm planning on using 1 x 2 material for the frames and clear polycarbonate as a glass replacement for both weight and strength. These frames will fit into the screen framing which will be fitted with the eyes for the hooks to fasten to.
I'll be doing this for both the front porch and the back deck.

Jim Fry wrote:Having spent many decades trying to do things inexpensively, cheap, or clever, I have found it is generally better to do things right the first time. One of the problems with make do and make shift is that you will be constantly dealing with fixing it. On most farms, time is not something you want to waste.

P.S. I have many dozens of wood framed 6'x4' greenhouse glass windows. You can have as many as you want if you feel like driving up to Richfield (between Cleve. & Akron). You can see what they look like if you go to my website ~ www.ohiofarmmuseum.com ~ and scroll a l-o-n-g way down to '"New" greenhouse' on Jan. 25, '14.

Your post seems to put inexpensive, cheap and clever at odds with the right way, but I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean.

I appreciate your offer of free greenhouse windows exactly because it could  save me money and labor which seems like a clever thing to do.

Being as you are farmer you have no doubt been faced with a choice of conventional   practices, each with a variety of costs in time, effort, and sustainability.
Since you are here, on Permies , I suspect you have found many of these practices lacking.

I have other motives.
I love making things.
I love making things differently even more.
I could do plumbing for extra  money and pay an expert to grow me  food,  or build me a greenhouse, by the numbers.
This,  I suppose would constitute "the right way "
But it holds no appeal whatsoever.
I already work a job for survival.