Making your SCROG Screen

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Making a scrog screen in 4 steps

Hey there and welcome (back)!
Today we’re going to cover a subject that many of you have asked us about on via our instagram, how to make a screen for a screen of green (aka SCROG).
Since we had to make one for our little Blue Thai and Laughing Buddha we figured it was the perfect moment to give you a step by step guide 🙂

Making a SCROG net - Table of content

Adding legs to the screen

Equipment needed to build a scrog screen

This part is pretty straight forward, in order to make your scrog net you’ll need:

Raw materials for the frame : In our case we used wood from a pallet found in the street which is perfect, just make sure the wood isn’t rotting or cracked all over, you don’t want it to break on you.
You could also you PVC pipes, wiring, or anything else that can make the side structure
Nails : Count at least 2 per corner + 2 per legs, which make 16 nails, not bad ey? (i’d stock up a bit more just in case though)
Wire: We used plain old metal wiring, although in hindsight I think some electrical wire may have been stronger.. we’ll see how it goes during this grow
You can also you plastic wires, which can simplify the job
A hammer: If you got nails you’re gonna need a hammer
A saw : We were lucky enough that a neighbor lent us a circular saw, making the job of cutting suuuper easy (& fun), but any saw will do the trick, might just need some more elbow grease
A drill (and drill bits!) : So this isn’t mandatory, we didn’t have one, but it’ll definitely make the job easier.. Making all those whole manually is definitely tiring (good workout though)
Wire cutters: These little guys will be super useful cut the wire cutters and well as tightening the screen
A Marker & a ruler : As any homemade project you’re going to need to measure stuff

And there you go! If you’re able to borrow stuff you can have a dirt cheap, awesome looking, screen in no time 🙂 Full expenses on our end…. 4 bucks & couples hours.
Now let’s get into what you’re really here for

Note: If you don’t need the legs you can use wire to make the frame and attach it in your grow space. It will be take much less room.

Step 1 - Measuring and cutting

a/ Tracing your cutting lines

Now that you have your materials you need to know specifically what you’re going to be doing. What is there to measure you say?
Well first and foremost, the width of your screen but also how far off the ground you want it.

On our end we aimed for a 40x40cm screen and about 40cm off the ground in order to go perfectly with our blue thai’s height.
Once you’ve measured this, you’re ready to get started.

Take a ruler and draw a line on the wood defining the sections you will be cutting. The lines will enable you to know exactly where to cut.

b/ Making the cuts

Now that your cut lines are in place all there is left to do is cut cut cuuuut!
Make sure that the blade of the saw is aligned with the cut lines, you can see this with the little notch on the top of it. Once you start cutting, follow through in one cut, having to go in for a 2nd one makes it harder to have a smooth edge.

Be careful to :

Wear eye protection : Wood shavings will go flying all over the place, all that’s needed it 1 splinter to fly into your eye and the damage is done
Charge the saw’s battery : When the battery is low the power of the saw is reduced, you might get the blade stuck into the wood, which could damage it.
Plant for the blades width in your measurements.
For this personally what I do is measure and cut the 1st piece of wood, then draw the cut lines with it that way i’m sure that they’re all the same length.

Step 2 – Building the frame

Now that you have you 4 sides all you need to do is nail them together. Place one nail at the top and one at the bottom of the plank of wood and you’re good 😉

Make sure you don’t place the nails too close to the sides, it might split the wood which can be a headache to handle.
On the flip side, don’t place them too close to the center, it will reduce the strength of the structure (+ you need the space for the leg nails)

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Step 3 – Installing the net

Alriight, got your frame? pretty cool no? 🙂 Now let’s get into the wiring, you’ll see that pretty quickly it takes form, in a minute you’ll start imagining your baby weaving over and under the wires hehe

Measuring the whole placements

As always, before doing anything you want to make sure you’re doing it right, and to do so you want to measure.
Here there are 2 things you want to watch out for

The wire wholes are on the same level of the board : To do so, we decided to run a line at 4.5cm from the left side of the frame
The wire whole are facing each other: To do so, we decided to make the wholes every 6cm.
This means that netting will be 6x6cm, which we find good in order to give room for the branches to be woven, while being close enough together not to have to wait for too long for the plant to cover the screen.

Making the wholes

So here we kind of had to figure out a last minute solution since.. we had a drill, but no drill bits, which made me feel kind of stupid… but really didn’t want to push this project to later so we figured, all that was needed is to pop a nail through, pull it out, and we had our whole ^^

In hindsight, definitely easier said than done, so make sure you have drill bits, except if you want the workout

Weaving the wires

Now another fun part, weaving the metal wires in order to make the netting! We used basic wiring, but it think that electrical wiring could of been a bit better since it’s stronger.

When you’re at the second side of the frame, make sure you criss cross the wires; One time over, one time under, in order for each wire to hold each other up (cf the right picture)

Tightening the screen

Got the wires in place? Awesome! now all that’s left is to tighten the screen, hammer on the legs, and you’re good to go!

In order to tighten the screen, all you need to do is :

Pull & Twist every other wire together by hand, doesn’t need to be very tight here
Use your wire cutters to keep twisting & tightening the screen
BE CAREFUL not to twist too tight, the wire might break!! (if it happened to you, scroll down 😉 )
Test the screen to see if it’s sturdy. If it is, go to the next step, if not pull with your hand every wire to see which ones can still be tightened.

You’re screens all done 🙂 In order to avoid tearing things (or sticking yourself) with those wire extremities you can cut off what sticking out and then push the twisted section against the wood.
Once in place it shouldn’t move and you’re good to get those legs on (if you need them)

And there you go! You’re screen is done, if you have a small room, or you made a screen to the size of your room, you might not need the legs and you can just tie it to the sides of the tent.
In our case we want to be able to move the plants around during the flowering period so we needed legs.

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Step 4 – Adding the legs

Just as we did with the frame, before anything you’re going to want to measure. Here the important info is how much room do you want you plant to grow before you want to get here weaving. As we cover in our SCROG Tutorial, you want to have at least 3 stages of leaves before you start weaving.

Once you have that measurement in mind, add the height of the pot and the height of your screen frame and you’ve got the length needed for your legs!

Measuring and cutting

Nailing the legs onto the frame

Here we are at the last step.. went fast didn’t it?!
All you’ll need to do here is nail you’re pieces of wood to the frame. We recommend doing this diagonally as it will be sturdier and will able to handle more weight.

And there you go! Within a couple hours, and for not even 5 bucks you’ve made yourself a scrog screen that will perfectly suit your needs !

If you’re going to be using it during the vegetation stage, where humidity levels can be much higher, make sure you treat the wood, orelse it won’t last very long.

SCROG Tutorial – Everything you need to know

Alright folks that’s all for this one !
As we said at the top of the article, with hindsight the wood definitely takes a lot of room in the tent. If you don’t need the legs, don’t hesitate to make the frame with some wiring too
We will be trying it out soon and will post the step by step here.

Until next time,
be safe and grow easy

About the author

plant-lover

Plant Lover is Free the Tree's founder and a passionate grower of plants. Mostly from the city, I work on my computer all day so about 4 years ago, on my off time, I started growing to have some more green in my life. I never imagined I would fall in love with botany and discover so much about this plant. Since then I keep learning everyday, meeting new awesome people of our community and which keeps me growing constantly You can always get in touch with me on our Instagram!