How to build wood cold air return

[Rob Lindquist]

I would like to make a cold air return from wood, it is a large 50" X 8" cold air return. The cabin is mostly knotty pine so I want to use that. Question is does anyone have any ideas to make this easy. I would like the louvers to be angled so you can not see into the return, but I keep thinking how to do it easily. Do you think I could just use a plunge router on a solid piece of pine with some sort of angle jig? Or is there something way easier I'm not thinking of?

Or do I make each louver seperate and fit them into slotted end pieces and probably center pieces as well.

[Jim Terrill]

This might help: http://woodworking.about.com/od/woodworkingplansdesigns/ss/Louvers.htm

[Larry Frank]

I built a small set of louvered panels for my computer cabinet to allow cooling. I opted to make a jig for my table saw mitre gauge to cut the slots for the louvers. It worked well for me but is just another option. I had the mitre gauage at about 45 degrees and built a jig that attached for indexing the pieces. My slats were only 1/8" thick but could use the same technique for any thickness. I personally have a difficult time holding a router to cut across a narrow piece.