plantation shutters

My wife and I have had vertical blinds for a number of years and they stopped drawing. She said she wanted to purchase some plantation shutters. When she got the bid she decided that it was way too much money. The hero for the day came and said; "Honey If I can purchase these tools from Rockler I can make the shutters."

The kit is very good and complete.
However, the instruction manual that came with the kit was rather poor.

I re-sawed all of the louvers on my new Laguna 14" SUV. I have a 14" Powermatic bandsaw that is very nice, but it does not re-saw worth a darn. When I taught, I really liked the Laguna and I was not sure that I wanted to go the extra money for the Laguna for personal use. I am glad that I did. Just for this one window I had to have 64 louvers. After cutting, I made a temporary router table and started to shape the louvers. Each louver requires 4 cuts to make the shape and then a pivot hole on each end and a hole for the control arm on the edge. So if you added that up, it is seven cuts on each louver. 64 louvers.....448 operations. That does not include all of the sanding. Whew!

I had those things setting everywhere. I had to use auto body putty to make everything just right.









Spraying was a lot of work also. My spray booth is only 7x10 so I had to do the three+ coats of sanding sealer in shifts. To add to the problem, Kwal paint made some sanding sealer that  clumped up like sour milk. It caused a huge problem. After sanding sealer, and sanding between coats, I had to shoot clear coat.
It turned out pretty well. The shutters will also completely open to the side of the window. After Christmas I will begin the bedroom shutters and then shutters for my oldest sister.

The wife is happy so that is all that counts.