Plantation Shutters
Plantation shutters are very popular down under at the moment, at least on the east coast of Australia.
My wife and I recently renovated the bathroom, yes girls she did help with the wall cladding, plastering and tiling. We had a window that looked a bit out of place, a bit ordinary, and we say some plantation shutters in an apartment when we were on holidays in Queensland.
You know what woodies are like, I can make them I said. Well that is what happened.
After scouting around nobody seemed to know how to make them, especially the pivoting and the controlling mechanism. The rest was pretty straight forward except the shutters were a little tricky.
I used google sketchup to design the project and that was very helpful.
We had installed a new jarrah vanity so we wanted to match the plantation shutters to the vanity. Jarrah is a very hard but beautiful timber so I decided to use a softer material. My supplier Adrian at Trend timbers had some 6"X2" Australian cedar which was ideal for the job. Nice to cut and sand with a nice grain.
I used beadlock loose tenons, two to each joint. They aligned very well and required minimal adjustment with the belt sander after glueup with tightbond III. I used tightbond III because the shutters will be exposed to moist air.
I used double ended shelf supports for the shutter pivots. They have a spacer in the middle which is perfect for allowing side clearance. mind you I had a great deal of trouble finding someone who sold these little suckers which was hard to believe at the time.
To adjust the tension on the mechanism to open and shut the louvers I just used a threaded screw in plug on the outside of the middle louvre. A screw simply pushes up against the pivot and makes the louvre harder or easier to turn. I used a second plug at the other end to prevent the louvre from being pushed against the side frame. boy that was long winded.
The louvres are 90mmX18mm (3.5"X3/4"). They are tapered from the centre at 4 degrees down to 6mm (1/4") at the end. I used the table saw to cut the angles with the blage set at 4 deg and used a long wedge (also cut on the TS as a support when cutting the other side of the louvre.
I used a cedar rod for the controlling mechanism with screw in eyelets. i made a small jig on the bandsaw to drill a hole on the edge of the louvre in the same place on each louvre using a spacer.
I made another small jig to centre the pivots in the louvres, you can imagine what would happen if the wher out of line.
I had a little difficulty with staining the wood to get the jarrah colour. It was too dark originally, but after a wipe down with a terps dampened cloth the colour lightened up perfectly. lucky me.
A
nyway, here is the finished product.
Thanks for looking
Plantation shutters are very popular down under at the moment, at least on the east coast of Australia.
My wife and I recently renovated the bathroom, yes girls she did help with the wall cladding, plastering and tiling. We had a window that looked a bit out of place, a bit ordinary, and we say some plantation shutters in an apartment when we were on holidays in Queensland.
You know what woodies are like, I can make them I said. Well that is what happened.
After scouting around nobody seemed to know how to make them, especially the pivoting and the controlling mechanism. The rest was pretty straight forward except the shutters were a little tricky.
I used google sketchup to design the project and that was very helpful.
We had installed a new jarrah vanity so we wanted to match the plantation shutters to the vanity. Jarrah is a very hard but beautiful timber so I decided to use a softer material. My supplier Adrian at Trend timbers had some 6"X2" Australian cedar which was ideal for the job. Nice to cut and sand with a nice grain.
I used beadlock loose tenons, two to each joint. They aligned very well and required minimal adjustment with the belt sander after glueup with tightbond III. I used tightbond III because the shutters will be exposed to moist air.
I used double ended shelf supports for the shutter pivots. They have a spacer in the middle which is perfect for allowing side clearance. mind you I had a great deal of trouble finding someone who sold these little suckers which was hard to believe at the time.
To adjust the tension on the mechanism to open and shut the louvers I just used a threaded screw in plug on the outside of the middle louvre. A screw simply pushes up against the pivot and makes the louvre harder or easier to turn. I used a second plug at the other end to prevent the louvre from being pushed against the side frame. boy that was long winded.
The louvres are 90mmX18mm (3.5"X3/4"). They are tapered from the centre at 4 degrees down to 6mm (1/4") at the end. I used the table saw to cut the angles with the blage set at 4 deg and used a long wedge (also cut on the TS as a support when cutting the other side of the louvre.
I used a cedar rod for the controlling mechanism with screw in eyelets. i made a small jig on the bandsaw to drill a hole on the edge of the louvre in the same place on each louvre using a spacer.
I made another small jig to centre the pivots in the louvres, you can imagine what would happen if the wher out of line.
I had a little difficulty with staining the wood to get the jarrah colour. It was too dark originally, but after a wipe down with a terps dampened cloth the colour lightened up perfectly. lucky me.
A
nyway, here is the finished product.
Thanks for looking
