Need a wide convex plane for making shutter blades.

I have what could be an on going project of fitting out the house with shutters. Problem is in this place they charge like raging bulls at about 7000 to 9000 to do the house. And to add insult to injury the shutters are made, at least in part, in china.

So I've had a look at what they supply and they're not complicated that's for sure. The only possible issue I can see is making the blades consistent and in a timely fashion. I want to do them all neanderthal so I need a convex plane that will cut around 1.5 to 2" wide. I can make one fairly easily but I wanted to ask first if anyone knows of one out there that I can pick up and save some sweat and time. So the specs is: it needs to cut between 1.5 and 2 inches wide with a curve along the length of the blade of something less than an 1/8". A 2" wide blade is probably way to much to push considering the over all amount of blade material I need so probably leaning towards 1.5". However I plan to use a fairly soft stable tight grained wood so I'll have to play with that a bit.

If I have to make one I was thinking I have two options: either make it all from scratch and buy a blade from Lee Valley or buy a transitional and modify it to suit and add a good blade from Lee Valley.

Or if you have any ideas don't hesitate to chime in.

What material for the blades?

Do you have access to a wide belt sander?
I'm thinking that you rive some straight grained timber to nominal thickness
and put each piece on a platten for the trip through a sander.

I'd be looking at modifying a woodie, or as you suggest, a transitional. I don't know that it'll be all that difficult to push since you won't be cutting the full 1/8" cavity in one pass.

Unless you have a lot of time on your hands I would find someone local with a molding cutter and get him to mill you enough blade stock to do all of your shutters plus some spares to account for breakage over time. Save the neandering to prep and assembly of the shutters as there will still be a lot of hand work there.

Rockler sells the shutter blades as well as jigs for making them. Here is a link. http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?p...6&site=ROCKLER

Getting a good result with a convex plane would be one heck of a lot of work!

A number of years ago I built a jig to make plantation shutter louvers using a planer.
Link to thread


http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ation-shutters

You should be able to adapt this to using a regular bench plane, and then rounding the edges.

It will give you a more trapezoidal profile, but if all the shutters have the same profile it should be fine. It was a fair amount of steps with a lunchbox planer, it will be quite the workout by hand. Have you estimated the linear feet of slats that you will need to make? Depending on slat width and window sizes you could be looking at something like 40 linear feet per window (very rough estimate for 2 ft x 5 ft window at 4 slats per foot in the vertical)

John

If you were concerned about pushing too wide a plane, you could make a left and right-hand side planes. If the grain direction gets weird it might be helpful, too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Erik Manchester

Unless you have a lot of time on your hands I would find someone local with a molding cutter and get him to mill you enough blade stock to do all of your shutters plus some spares to account for breakage over time. Save the neandering to prep and assembly of the shutters as there will still be a lot of hand work there.

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I'd be surprised to find someone around here that would do it for less than a $1000.

I don't have a great deal of time but I certainly could use the therapy of the manual labour. So in a lot of ways I'm looking forward to the physical work out. Just re-did my garden and there was a great deal of digging, racking, mucking, rolling out lawn and loved nearly every minute of it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John Walkowiak

Rockler sells the shutter blades as well as jigs for making them. Here is a link. http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?p...6&site=ROCKLER

Getting a good result with a convex plane would be one heck of a lot of work!

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Definitely an option - thanks

I was thinking of a modifying or building a plane so it has a similar methodology to a raised panel plane in that there are rubbing strips on each side of the plane that limit the amount of material that can be planed off and keep the pieces nice and consistent... if that makes any sense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim Matthews

What material for the blades?

Do you have access to a wide belt sander?
I'm thinking that you rive some straight grained timber to nominal thickness
and put each piece on a platten for the trip through a sander.

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Basswood is probably at the top of the list around here. Relatively stable, fine grained and reasonably soft but not too soft. I love a nice tight grained pine but finding such wood here is a bit problematic and expensive. What ever I choose, I'll probably cut it in an edge grained orientation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John Stankus

A number of years ago I built a jig to make plantation shutter louvers using a planer.
Link to thread


http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ation-shutters

You should be able to adapt this to using a regular bench plane, and then rounding the edges.

It will give you a more trapezoidal profile, but if all the shutters have the same profile it should be fine. It was a fair amount of steps with a lunchbox planer, it will be quite the workout by hand. Have you estimated the linear feet of slats that you will need to make? Depending on slat width and window sizes you could be looking at something like 40 linear feet per window (very rough estimate for 2 ft x 5 ft window at 4 slats per foot in the vertical)

John

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I taken a vow of celibacy with respect to machines - except for a band saw. Can't be to much of a zealot can I

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Joshua Pierce

If you were concerned about pushing too wide a plane, you could make a left and right-hand side planes. If the grain direction gets weird it might be helpful, too.

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If I am smart and pick the wood carefully I should be able to handle 2" (fingers crossed).

Just an idea:

Find an old wide skew rabbet plane 2" wide. Like this one on *-bay (not mine, no interest, for reference, etc.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-2-Sk...item19d93e4f9e

Reshape the sole and iron to your desired profile. Add a fence to the left and right cheek which also set your depth of cut (so they hang past the sole).
Go to town on the planing. The skew blade should help with tear out and allow you to take a heavy cut.