Exterior Shutter material and mounting hardware

[Todd Hyman]

Hi Everyone,

LOL is looking for me to build some exterior shutters foir the front of the house. The shutters will be shaker stile with rails / stiles with a solid panel in the middle. I have read that cedar, cypress or redwood are good, but I live outside of Atlanta so moisture will be an issue. What type of material would you use for the panel itself?

The house is brick so I'm thinking about some type of cleat that is attached using tapcons and the shutter rests on the cleat. Let me know what you think and thanks for the recomendations.

[Peter Pedisich]

Todd,

What thickness is the panel?
Exterior ply will telegraph the big grain and oval patches through the paint. Maybe someone familiar with MDO can say if it's durable enough for this, it will certainly paint well.
I would glue up 3/4 thk of the stock you chose and rabbet the back, and no glue in the grooves.

Pete

[Ben Abate]

Todd,

I recently finished a job for a lady with shutters from the 30's that were originally made of redwood. They were a two piece construction, each piece being 12 inches wide. They were tongue and grooved together in the center with a "V" groove to accent the center of them. They were not glued together, they were held together with the batten boards on the back, one upper and one lower on the panels. I was pretty impressed with the condition of them considering they were from the 1930's. Now, she did not want to spend the money to make new ones on the entire house so I was only hired to remake two windows and she didn't want to spring for the redwood so I made them of Cedar. I did however repair the other shutters by cutting off the edges where the hinges were. That area had rotted pretty good. I sliced off about 4 inches on each and used a Gorilla type glue to make up the width. I'm hoping the urethane type glue will hold up. The end result is that they will be painted in the end once again. Sorry for the long story. Here's what I've been thinking. Why not POLY WOOD.......they make outdoor funiture out of it. They make all kinds of out door tables and what ever out of that stuff. I"ve been thinking of using it to make shutters for my own home.

hope this brings some ideas to you
Ben

[Erik Christensen]

todd

if you are going to paint it I would use 1/4" hardie board - never have to worry about termites or rot with that

i just cut a bunch of that to make a deck raining that will have a tile top - put a carbide/diamond blade on my table saw & with my shop DC there was very little dust. stuff was pretty easy to cut accurately