You’re not invited and you’re not coming in!

We love our new van with its big open view from the kitchen counter top looking out on to the great Scottish outdoors. However, that big open space from opening the side door means that whilst we look out, the Scottish midge and friends come in uninvited and crash the ambience very quickly. They get in everywhere they shouldn’t and are a total nuisance while drinking your blood.

To combat this annual nuisance, Illya decided what we need is a mesh across the door so that we can look out while keeping the midge and friends out and sit and relax after a long bike ride in peace.

In anticipation of getting the van, Illya first asked Vanworx if such a thing as a removable door mesh shield could be fitted to fit the van. They said yes and Illya was overjoyed. 

Now if any of you have encountered a Scottish midge you will know that while it has a ferocious bite, it is also extremely small at 2mm in length. This means it can quite easily penetrate a mosquito net and still have you for lunch. 99% of nets available on the market outside Scotland use mesh that is only good for preventing mosquitoes, and the mesh door cover available by Vanworx was the same. That wasn’t going to work.

Having lived in Scotland for 15 years, luckily we had already found a Scottish supplier of a fine mesh fabric that we had used to build covers for tents and our previous van to keep the midges at bay. So we then thought all Illya had to do was fix the anti-midge mesh to the proposed mosquito door cover. Simple? No! Vanworx stopped supplying the door cover as with the van’s curved door and the lack of a gap between it and the kitchen counter top, eventually the mesh door would break.

Further research has not produced anything that is suitable to fit the van door and allow for very quick deployment. You see, given the chance, the midge and his thousand other friends will use any gap to get into the van while you are doing other things, like entering and exiting the van.

Having seen how the van’s rear barn door cover is fitted by Vanworx made by Ridgeline, Illya went about designing a midge mesh cover for the van’s sliding door himself. There were several criteria for the mesh cover:

1. It must be removable, but able to be fitted in a couple of minutes
2. It must be see through
3. It must be extremely quick to open and close of the mesh door while keeping any opening as small as possible just to let a person through when entering and exiting the van.

To find the dimensions of the door area, taking into account where the door seal lay etc, Illya first purchased several rolls of masking tape and constructed a template frame to map out the door. A marker pen was used to scribe the rubber seal relative to the frame onto the several layers of tape.

The frame, like with the rear barn door cover’s frame, is made of fabric which is squeezed formed and force fitted between the metal edge and rubber seal’s seat. Once the seal is reseated the frame is held in shape by friction.

With a mock up of the frame made, it was time to get parts to make the actual mesh frame. These are:

1. 2x #10 zips, black detachable and double sided, 1.5m and 1.3m in length
2. 3m x 2m of black PVC type fabric material to make the frame
3. 3m x 2m of Scottish midge proof mesh
4. T-Rex 50mm by 20m high adhesive tape
5. High strength thread (for stitching all this stuff together)
6. Optional 50mm x 1m of Velcro 

And so to cut to the chase here are some photos of the making of the midge door cover.

And here are photos of it in place once fitted.

And because the mesh cover is detachable, a different cover can be put in its place using the frame’s two zips for example a thermal shield or a rain shield. So keep tuned for more van projects.