"Sorry, have not fully followed this thread could you explain the staple issue you overcame to a lay person."
I am no expert, and this thread will get buried, but will be available should someone look this up, and so I will share a few thoughts on making shudders.
For the louvers, I am glad I purchased them at Rockler. ?Sure I could have purchased the tooling and made them, but for a one off, easier to buy the louvers than buy tooling (that then will need to be stored). ?They will be pained white. If you happen to want a certain wood grain, well that would be different.
On the rails and stiles, I used Maple but basswood offers the advantage of lighter weight. ?I made my stiles 1 1/16 thick and the rails not as thick. ?That gives a nice profile with the beads on the inside of the stile. ?For the bit, I liked the Rockler profile better than what I could get on my 1 Whitesides beading bits.?
The stiles get the bead and the rails get a rabbet.
For the notch for the control arm on the top rail, the Rockler jig makes that easy. ?
To make the holes on the inside edges of the stiles, Rockler sells a jig, but I think it is easier and faster to mark all of the stiles across where the holes will be, and use a drill press and fence. ?I bought the jig and ended up not using it. ?Time to sell it cheap.
For the joinery, I was very happy with the Mafell and dowels. ?Easy to do dry fits, and subsequent final assembly.
For drilling the holes in the ends of the louvers I used the Rockler jig connected to plywood that had a toggle clamp to secure the wood. ?Very fast accurate drilling.
Rockler does make products to connect control arms to louvers as an alternative to the staples used by the pros. ?I used staples and jigs. ?adding the 1/4 crown x 7/8 staple to the middle of each louver on end was done with the 1 jig shown in the picture. The staple gun has to be positioned to deliver the staple to the right depth and setting a stop allows the staple to be centered.
The more tricky part is connecting the louvers to the control arm. ?It can be done with 1/4 crown by 5/8 staples. ?In this case, I made my own 1/2 x 5/8 control arms out of basswood with roundovers. ?These control arms then fit in a trough of my jig. ?The staple gun is positioned so that when a louver with a staple is set over the control arm, the staple will go through the center of the staple in the louver and attach it to the control arm. ?There seemed to be slight variability in depth, so I make sure the depth of staple penetration was a bit less than final, and then I use a hammer to have the stapes all protrude 1/4 inch. ?Having this consistency was very helpful in making sure that the louvers opened and closed evenly.
For the assembly, I first connected the rails to 1 stile and did a glue up making sure it was square. ?Then, when that dried I fit the louvers (with shudder pins) into the holes and added the other stile. ?Tricky getting the shudder pins to all fit, but doing it in 2 steps makes this way easier.
For the hinges, many options including lift off. ?I found nice polished nickel hinges that were Deltana CH3020U14 that were really nice. ?I mortise them in using a jig from Woodhaven. ?
