We are an Architectural Millwork Co. building wood windows & doors. A year and a half ago we bought a shutter company.

Although it is a good business and orders come in consistently, building shutters is a lot different than windows & doors. For example, there are a lot more parts to a shutter. Especially the louvers. If we get a project for a house full of shutters we could be easily cutting 10,000 louvers for the project.

I am looking for advice on a saw to cut all of these parts so the process is not so manual. Is there an automatic type saw that will cut this many parts to specifications in a little amount time or set the machine up and you can walk away and do something else?

I also have the issue of tearout when cutting the louvers to length. Not only do you need to cut this many parts you need to go through each one to make sure the tear out from the saw blade is sanded down. No tearout means no sanding.

I appreciate you feedback in advance on how to improve our louver processing.

Thanks,
Chad

You need a straight-line rip saw, and a minimum of a 4 head moulder. Both self feed and you get finished long lengths of stock. Then an uncut saw to cut to length. There are many component companies that will give you a bid on 12' strips of louver stock.

Rich is correct, except you need an upcut saw, vs his typo. You can gang slats up to 10, 15 or even 20 slats wide, and make a cut. If you can't get 10,000 slats before lunch, you are not trying.

And a gang rip saw is also needed. Way back when, I could cut up 10,000l/f of slat stock in a couple of hours. It took longer to put it away than to rip.

The molder will not run more than 30 l/f min, so it will take 5-1/2" hrs there, at best.

As for quality of cut, you are mortising the entire slat into the stiles, correct? A 3/8" mortise or deeper is required for good work, with a snug to tight fit for the slats. You will not have tearout issues beyond 3/8", I hope.

Morgan Door will dub the two tong edges of the slat end with a sanding operation, hopper fed. This would help them ease a slat into its mortise, then a hydraulic press clamped the whole thing together.

The mortises are made with a Festo or similar routing operation that does both stiles at the same time. Louvers are an old time product, and most louver companies had shop made machines for many of the operations. The shop I worked in (ca. 1975) making louvers had 2-3 machines with automotive switches repurposed from brake lights that would trigger operations.

Thanks for your responses.

Just to be clear, (not that it makes a difference), the majority of our business is interior operating shutters. Our specialty are shutters for historical homes. We make Pocket shutters as well as Victorian and Plantation shutters. We also make rolling shutters for sliding doors.

We do make exterior shutters, it is not a high percentage at this time.

At this time we are buying most of our lineal from suppliers. So we don't need to run stiles and louvers through a rip saw or moulder.

We are considering doing this in-house in the future to have more control over quality.

Couple of our issues: Almost all parts for shutters are made from Basswood. As you may know Basswood is very soft and gets dings and marks in it every time you touch it. I am concerned with an upcut saw for two reasons:

1.) the hold down for the parts is going to nick up the parts.

2.) Tear out from the saw is going to cause us to sand the ends of the louvers.

At some point we may be making our own parts out of Birch or Maple so the material is denser/harder.

Do you have recommendations for an upcut saw? I do like that they are safer than a pull (radial arm) saw.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Chad

Oh - Movable slat shutters! That is something else.

The better movable slat shutters have a pin machined at each end of the slat. This is done with a round end tenoner of sorts. The machine was small and purpose built.

A slat would be grabbed and pulled to a stop. The shop I worked in made 98% of their movables in Pine - Sugar Pine. The stop set the extreme length of the slat, adjustable from about 5" to 24" or so. Once the machine started, the slat would revolve in a circle (defining the center of the to be made pin) while a swivel head saw group would activate and move towards the revolving slat. The saws would produce a tenon or pin for two slats - the first one to the left of the saws, and then the next one right of the saws. As that group of saws swiveled back out of the cut, it swung enough to to bring in a saw to cut the two slats apart. One slat was cut free, and dropped into a bin. The slat was pulled forward for another cycle. The cycles were adjustable, but it was kept at about 3-7 seconds per slat. The slats had to be started into the machine by hand, but once it grabbed the slat, it fed it unto the end.

This saw group that made the tenon and the shoulder cut was never changed - sharpened or adjusted in the 8 years I worked in that shop. Yet it made splinter-free cuts day in and day out. 10,000 slats? Two days with that machine, by a 84 yr old man on a stool.

I will mention the secret to good movables is to have that tenon/pin bottom out in the drilled stile. This prevents the shoulder - splinter-free, we hope - from rubbing the stile and dragging in the finish, whether it is paint or stain.

This machine is not on the shelf. You will have to make one. Even then, it may take a few tries before you get rid of the splinters.

Try this place for machinery. I just went to Google, but looks like these guys know what they are doing, and it's a rare American Manufacturer.

https://texasmachinedesign.com