Good news on shades for a change

FDchief · 12-06-2010, 03:10 PM

Instead of the usual reason we post threads on the forum, I thought I would post a positive one.

After 7+ years, I had to restring my first shade. It is the small one over the bed, side of slide out, so it was a good learning shade. Using the instructions from this forum, and cord from the dirty blind guy, and the stringing tool, the wife and eye completed the job in a half hour. Would have been less but we missed a step

Really, it is a piece of cake. And my grommets were all facing in the right direction. This is probably why I did not have a breakage until now. My blind installer at the factory was having a good day when mine was built

Anyway, don't sweat the blind thing. It is not that big of a deal, and now I am knowledged and tooled up

DriVer · 12-06-2010, 09:27 PM

On all the new Winnebago Coaches (Class A) I will say for now the day/night shade (pleated) is no longer used. A MCD Roller Shade (twin shades) is used on the windows that works like a regular roll down shade but better. On the outside you will have a day (translucent) shade that you can pull down. There is a 2nd shade on the inside of the rig that you can pull down over the day shade and this is an opaque shade that is used as a night shade. Either shade can be up or down since both are independent. The hand motion to raise and lower the shades is very easy and almost fluid like - it's just very easy. No more sagging shades, broken strings (I hope) and dented pleats.

**NLOVNIT** · 12-06-2010, 10:22 PM

You know, everything old is new again, isn't it? The industry has gone through curtains, wooden blinds, mini-blinds, pleated shades, honeycomb shades...etc & what do they come back around to?....an improved version of the roller shades that were in standard in every window of our grandparent's house. How ironic.

L-

ua40j · 12-07-2010, 04:47 AM

You're absolutely right, NLOVNIT. That's why when our day/night shades break, we jerk them out and put in the roller shades. Inexpensive and easier to replace. No flapping, noise or worries.

Since we have tinted double pane windows, we've never had occasion to use the 'day' part of the day/night shades. So we just buy the room darkening roller blinds.

Work great. And if one fails, just pull it out, take it to anyone who sells roller shades and have a new one cut.

HD4Mark · 12-07-2010, 06:19 AM

We also restrung blinds with the kit from RV Shade and Blind Repair Weren't lucky enough to do a small one first try though. Just read the how to, figure out which type you have and take your time. Had enough string and stuff left to redo one on the next MH.

It appeared that a couple of the holes for the string to run through had burrs on them so we filed them down just in case and replaced the grommets.

GA Cajun · 12-07-2010, 03:48 PM

We had the strings on our biggest shade (naturally) break a few months ago. I was worried about getting them put back together, but with instructions from the place where I bought the string, they really weren't hard to restring. DW and I put that first one back together in about 30 minutes and we both lived to tell about it.

Since then, we've restrung all of the shades in the living area of the MH and we have it down to less than 15 minutes start to finish. No big deal. I would HIGHLY recommend two people to restring these things, though.

FDchief · 12-08-2010, 09:20 AM

GA Cajun, you are right when you say that two people definitely make the job easier. I have seen the new roll up shades in the latest mohos. Much better. I am not a fan of the spring loaded roll-up shades, but the manual pulls seem to work fine. Maybe I will upgrade my coach with the new shades, or possibly a new motorhome

DriVer · 12-08-2010, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FDchief

I am not a fan of the spring loaded roll-up shades, but the manual pulls seem to work fine. Maybe I will upgrade my coach with the new shades, or possibly a new motorhome

You know what I saw with these shades is that they are neutrally loaded. When you raise of lower the shade they seem to be almost counter balanced and the action is easy. When you let go of the shade it stays put. It's getting better all the time.