Quick update on the Boleros: I finally got around to replacing the grill cloth. As you may recall from earlier in the thread, the original cloth was dry-rotted, discolored and, in places, badly ripped.
The material itself was quite sexy: a 22-ish thread-count raw linen with occasional thick fibers woven in to create a horizontal pattern like rain streaks on a windshield
Initially I wanted to find an exact match to this cloth. Following advice from
@SFBayArch (in another thread - no pun intended), I checked 123Stitch.com, but couldn't find a match on their website. I also emailed customer service with the specs and the photo above. They were very helpful but they didn't have any material quite like this, so I decided to hit the discount fabric outlet and find something I could live with. After a bit of digging I came up with a nice 20-ish thread count linen with a similar pattern.
Not _quite_ as classy as the original, but not bad. I pulled all the original staples from the frame and removed the old grill cloth. Underneath, I found a thin, coarse-woven black cloth that was apparently added to increase the opacity of the grill. This material was in good shape so I just steam-pressed it flat and reused it.
Everything else was pretty straightforward. I wasn't too careful about keeping the threads exactly aligned with the edges of the frame but life is short...
I did have to run to the hardware store to get some 1/4" staples, because my 5/8" staples would have punched all the way through the frame.
The result might not be quite as sexy as the original was when it was brand new but it's not bad.