Cypress shutters finished

[Bob Johnson]

I've finally finished these 8 cypress shutters. They're 23"x45" with 33 slats. I built a jig for routing the slat slots, a single slot I moved along each stile. In retrospect, I should have made a jig with 33 slots. I about wore out the jig from the template collar on the router, the jig was made from tempered hardboard.

I used the bandsaw to resaw the slats, and the weld on the blade broke with about 10 slats to go. I finished up with the tablesaw. Pswood has allready replaced the Timberwolf blade with no hassle.

The profits here will cover the cyclone I built, still have to do the hard ducting.

Thanks for looking

Bob

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Bob, great job! I wished I had a local supplier who carried or could easily get cypress. I've got several outside projects to do and cypress would be a great material to use. Again, nice job!

[Steve Jenkins]

What angle do you put the slats at? Thanks, Steve

[Todd Burch]

Bob, what's the application for the shutters (around windows, obviously). Since you used Cypress, I'm assuming these will actually be used out of doors. Will they be painted? Will mounting be face screws or nails? Or, will these be functional, with the ability to open and close? Was this a commission? How long did they take?

Todd

[Bruce Page]

Those are beautiful Bob! I recall once seeing someone (Norm?) build some shutters on TV, it looked like it was a lot of work. How long did it take you?

[Bob Johnson]

What angle do you put the slats at? Thanks, Steve


Steve, I had to go measure the angle on the remanents of the jig. It's about 25 degrees.

Here's the general process I used to set things up. The rails and stiles are 1" thick. I arbitrarly decided that 1/4" thick (a 1/8" round over bit would handle them) and 1 3/8" wide was the right size for the slats. Then the angle was whatever would give me about 1/8" from the slat slot to the edge of the stile. The distance from the top of one slat to the top of the next slat is 1 1/8". That looked like the right amount of overlap to me.

There are probably more "correct" formulas for figuring this out, but this worked for me.

Bob

[Bob Johnson]

Bob, what's the application for the shutters (around windows, obviously). Since you used Cypress, I'm assuming these will actually be used out of doors. Will they be painted? Will mounting be face screws or nails? Or, will these be functional, with the ability to open and close? Was this a commission? How long did they take?

Todd

Todd,

The subdivision I live in (we moved here about 2 years ago after I retired/got laid off) has an open sided building by the pool, probably about 40 to 50 feet square. All four of the roof sides slope in - whatever you call that kind of roof - and has a cupola at the top with 2 openings on each side for the shutters to fit in. The shutters will be screwed in place. The origional shutters aparently rotted away a few years back, and noone was able to find replacements.

This was a commission. I proposed doing this to the board last June, and showed them a prototype. I had to figure out how to make them before I opened my mouth. Isn't working with committes wonderful? My part was to build them, not any finishing, not any installation. I think that they are just going to put something like Flood's Clear Wood Finish on them, install them, and forget them.

Anyway, they gave me partial payment in March and I guess it took me all of April to make them. I'm old and slow and have a lot of back pain so it takes me a long time to build things.

Is it in bad taste to say how much you got paid for a job? Let's find out. My offer (it was accepted) was for me to provide the unfinished shutters made from cypress for $1600. My material costs were about $360.

If I could work 8 hours a day, I would guess that it would take me about 5 days to build 8 more once I had the materials.

Bob

[Todd Burch]

Bob, not in bad taste at all, and I'll add that was a fair price. Thanks for the info. Todd

[Alan Turner]

Bob,
Thanks for mentioning the price. It was a very fair price. It is always hard to know how to price one-off work, and all information is useful. BTW, very nice job. Very clean look. Hope they finishing them well before installing, as refinishing them will be a PITA!
Alan