Shutter/Louver 4-1/2" - 12

This plantation shutter slat 4-1/2" - 12 measures 4.500" wide by .437" thickness. The elliptical-shaped profile is one of the more common sizes used to construct elegant interior window coverings. Tilt rod designs for moving these jalousie slats up and down when assembled are at the beginning pages of this category. The custom profile comprises a 36-13/64" radius arc on top and bottom, tangent to a 5/32" radius half-circle on each side edge of the design. The professionally drafted cad dxf file contains two high precision template designs to create blades for this elliptical-shaped detail, one for the top and bottom and the other for the left and right. The side cutters are designed axial constant with two profiles in a sixty-millimeter cutter head. These blade positions can be swapped when the knives become dull, saving time in production.

Some louver manufacturers mill these types of wood designs with just the top and bottom horizontal cutter heads, saving money on tooling and machine setup costs. Our concern with this machining approach is that you have ninety-degree cuts where the top and bottom cutters intersect on each side edge of the design. This leads to the burning of the tooling, which decreases production run times between sharpening; it is also where your eyes will be when the window covering is opened in the horizontal position, exposing all defects in the milling process. Larger cutting circles on the machinery will force you to open bed plates and chip breakers while simultaneously causing snipes (imperfections on the ends of the boards). Trust us, four milling stations are the easier way to mill louver slats, it will cost more money on tooling and more time to set up the machinery, but in the long run, you will have far less machining trouble, your product will be far superior to those mills doing it the less expensive way.

For knife quoting purposes use the calculator below; we have added only the important measurements. A brief detailed explanation of how to use the calculator is located here.

Width = 4.500" / Depth of Cut = .083" (top knives) & .083" (bottom cutters).

Thickness = 1.625" / Depth of Cut = .357" (right blades) & .357" (left cutters).