For those of you that have a similar type sifter to what I built, what did you use for your 1/16" screen? I used window screen and I'm not finding it very sturdy. Is there a thicker type of wire screening that will hold up better when there's the weight of the soil on top of it?
Hi Gary,
Thanks for the inspiration -- I just built a soil sifter modeled off of this post and others. I ordered my 1/16 galvanized steel wire cloth screen here:
McMaster-Carr is the complete source for your plant with over 595,000 products. 98% of products ordered ship from stock and deliver same or next day.
www.mcmaster.com
Specifically, I ordered the 12 Mesh, which has an opening size very close to 1/16:
https://www.mcmaster.com/9220T88
I built my box interiors to 18x24" due to the mesh sizes available above. I had looked at bwire.com and brown-campbell.com which carry a similar mesh, but it was going to be significantly more to get a custom cut of 18x30". The 1/16" mesh is fairly rigid, but I still used a crossbar on my 18x24 sifter for that and the 1/8" layer so that it will help support weight with a lot of soil. The 1/4" layer was so rigid it didn't need a crossbar, but I should have probably just ordered standard hardware cloth for that, as the larger sizes of wire mesh are somewhat difficult to work with (needed some strong wire cutters on the 3 mesh).
A few other modifications I made to your design were using some latches I found on Amazon to keep the layers connected and a hanging bike rack I found at Home Depot to act as the handles. I didn't plan ahead and the wheels ended up bumping into the handles, so anyone else who uses this idea should double-check that (I was able to cut some notches in the 2x4s at the bottom). Measuring out the latch positions to be the same on each box will allow you to remove the middle layer if desired. Putting the small hooks on the top box will help the latches lay down when disconnected, and be out of the way for smoother storage and connections. Using 3/4" self-drilling screws to attach the latches helped a lot. I ordered the 3" caster wheels from Amazon -- they have a lot of different options.
I also chose to encase the wire inside of the boxes as the stuff I ordered could cut really easily. I used some 1x2" wood. I don't like the loss of sifting area, but I do like not having huge metal cuts on my fingers (wear gloves when working with that wire mesh!). I'll probably add additional rails to the bottom of the 1/16" box to fully encase the wire mesh and avoid injury. The 7" height of each sifter is only because I had a lot of extra wood in that size laying around -- I wish they were each a couple inches shorter.