Exterior window shutters - part 2
fitting the battens and braces
[ soundtrack : Klezmerata Fiorentina - Tales of the Hidden Zaddik ]
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I’m warning you! This will be a long, tedious slog — not for the easily distracted. If, on the other hand, you’re a glutton for woodworking minutiae: Come, brother! Let us trudge bravely on, like Scott on his way back from the South Pole. These window shutters won’t make themselves.
The previous post left us with stacks of panels; tongue & grooved, chamfered on the long edges and with the cross-grain dovetail dados routed out:
On the photo above you can also see the stack of battens, already rip-sawn to 75 mm width with sides sloping 8° to match the angle of the dovetailing router bit.
Before we start fitting the battens we’d do well to mark, drill and countersink the holes for the ‘centering screws’.
In order to fit the battens I’ve reconfigured my building table; the routing frame is gone, replaced by a 12 mm thick beech strip screwed securely across the table. It will be the new backstop for the panel-boards.
The panels are put back together (in their right order!) with 4 mm spacers inbetween to set the right gaps. This is the general idea:
Before we can start planing the battens to fit, we need to make some marks to guide us. The battens measure 75 mm at their widest. The dovetailed dado tapers from 74 mm to 73 mm: 1 mm ‘offset’ over a distance of 1100 mm. Not much, but enough to make it much easier to fit.
With some marks to guide us we can now plane the battens until they snug up tightly. This is the fun part :-)
I use three planes to fit the battens; each one set up a little differently to do specific operations.
First, I use the no.6 Veritas (‘Long-nose Dora’) set up with an ever-so-slightly cambered blade to plane the underside of the batten smoooth and very, very slightly hollow (cambered blade, see?) This is to make the outer edges of the underside of the batten the parts that actually fit against the bottom of the dovetailed dado. I think of it as ‘eliminating noise’ in the fitting-up process — if that makes any sense at all?
Regarding the edges of the batten: Remember that it only tapers on one side! This is easier to work with than a double-tapering piece.
Next, I use my Lie-Nielsen no. 5½ with an un-cambered / straight blade to give the non-tapering edge of the batten a flat & smooth surface — it was up until now a sawn surface. I’ve set up this plane to take shavings of approx. 0,1 mm — 10 passes removes 1 mm — in theory.
Then — on the other, tapering edge — I roughly approximate the taper by first taking short, then successively longer passes. Imagine the red lines are plane-passes and you’ll get the idea. Finish off with one long, egalising pass.
Now I can try sliding the batten up the dovetailed dado to see how far it will go, making a mental note of where it’s visibly slack and where it seems to stick tight. Plane accordingly! You can also glean clues as to how it fits by holding the batten up against the light and looking for compression marks on the edges.
When you’re nudging up against a good fit it’s time to do the final, fine adjustments. I’ve set up my no. 4 Veritas with a straight blade to take whisper-shavings — 0,05 mm will do. This will give you fine control over the final fit.
It’s both fun and surprisingly easy to fit battens like this when you get into the swing of it, and very satisfying when you thump it home and it fits tightly all along its length. But to be on the safe side, best make a couple of extra battens in case you get carried away with the planing and make sure to make them over-long: You can make a slack batten fit tight ‘further down the road’!
After the fun work was done, I chamfered the panel ends — it looks so much better; like a more finished product.
Then I gave the panel-faces a lick-over to remove the pencil marks and shallow dents that invariably accumulate during work-handling, and to give the surface that silky, soft sheen that only a sharp hand plane can impart.
I used to just drop the shavings on the floor and shuffle around in them like they were autumn leaves tickling my toes before having to gather them up and shove them in a bag. (I work in sandals all year round — like a Roman soldier, not like a deluded hippie. I’m just not fond of closed shoes and do not need to look presentable. I’m paid for my skills, not my looks — thank God!)
On this job I started keeping an open bag under the front vice and dropping the fluff into it as I worked. Much better; saves time. So … I’ve started doing a new thing and this pleases me immensely! After all these years I’m still improving my mundane routines. Never let them tell you an old dog can’t learn new tricks. Woof!
At this stage our battens fit and our boards are pretty. Time to wrap it all up.
Reassemble the panels with the spacers inbetween and whack the battens home — with a hammer, not your hand. Use just the right amount of force! And how much is that, pray tell? Well … too much and you’ll force the panels to bend lengthwise (it’s a proven method of straightening out bent solid-wood doors, whacking in a wedge) or they might even crack . Too little and your assembly will be slack. Just the right amount, my friend.
The most important ability of all: sound judgement … only acquired by experience — mostly bitter.
When the battens are in their proper position we can mark off their length …
… before we fine-cut their length on the mitre saw (or by hand if you’re some sort of neo-luddite who’s convinced woodworking just ain’t slow enough going as it is).
On this job, we’ve decided to go for some additional prettification of the battens: They are to taper to half their thickness at the ends. In Norwegian — Odin’s own language — the old boys would call this “å smi ut” — literally: ‘to (black)smith out’ … meaning; to make thinner, as a smith would hammer a taper onto the end of a workpiece. I mention it just as a linguistic curiosity.
So … as always; first — marking.
This shows what I will remove:
By the way, in case you were wondering: The squiggly pencil lines are tattletale markings that make it easier to keep track of how I’m creeping up on the line as I plane away.
As is so often the case, it’s convenient to employ different planes for the various stages of the operation.
First; a scrub plane to hog off the bulk of the waste. You do this best with repeated, rapid jabbing strokes; plane held fairly close to your body, its working angle an integral part of your floor-legs-torso-arms-hands-plane-on-wood-posture. *Sigh* The hopelessness of trying to find the words to express even such simple things?! So easily done, so difficult to convey in words.
The scrub makes short work of wasting out the slope.
Next: a medium-set 5½ to dial in the angle and flatten the surface.
Finishing with a dainty-set, straight-over ‘kissing plane’ to sneak up on the marking lines without them ever noticing they’re being sliced in half.
Not that this end-chamfer needs to be precisely executed … on the contrary; it can be wildly out of measure with no adverse effects. It’s just that … I’m not just working; I’m playing a game. An everyday game called “how well can I do this?” or “how can I improve this process?”
It’s time to affix the panels to the battens. Whack them home for the final time, flip the shutters over and, after checking that they are still in the right position, pre-drill (two diametres, if you please! We’re using old-school brass hardware here) and screw it!
I’ve set the slip-clutch on my cordless drill so it’ll drive the screw but start slipping before it tightens down. That last part I want to do myself, by hand. I want to torque it just so. Actually, that pretty much sums up what it’s all about for me: just so — my judgement.
Next: fitting the diagonal braces. First: marking up.
The Ron Hock handleless marking knife is invaluable for this sort of work.
Then I break out my trusty, old Bahco chisels and chop merrily away. It’s just like clearing out a mortise, except that it’s open on one side and the ends are queer, so not like a mortise at all, then. Have at ’er as you please — there are many ways to go about it. Experiment!
As when planing, I often use several tools for slightly different operations: The 25 & 20 mm for rough chopping (wasting), the slender boys for nibbling into the corner, and the 40 mm wideboy for flattening off the long wall. Use each according to its merits!
Speaking of nifty chisels: Hultafors makes a series of four stout ‘builder’s chisels’ that are so designed that the handle does not interfere with the back of the chisel when lying flat:
It’s just the tool for flushing out the bottom of the notch.
It doesn’t have to be pretty, just functional!
Nota bene! Becase the diagonal brace meets the battens at an angle, and because the edges of the battens themselves are slanted, the incisions on the edges are not perpendicular to anything at all. You’d best scribe them off of the brace itself — poor explanation, but you’ll understand if you ever try it :-)
Check that the walls are square …
… before pressing the brace into place, marking out and pre-drilling for the screws, then mounting it permanently.
I decided to cut a deliberately uneven chamfer on the edges / contours of the battens and braces in order to give a rustic impression. Utterly fake impression, of course — these shutters are made to very tight tolerances in some places, but your average civilian doesn’t know that. The wavy contours are what will catch his attention, and he’ll think “Ooooh … old … handmade!“ — which isn’t exactly untrue … but then again, not true in any way he’s able to comprehend. Let’s call it ‘managing expectations’ and speak no more of it.
On the end-grain I used a chisel …
… and on the long edges I used a stubby little knife I keep for such occasions:
A bit of prettification …
… and that’s about it, I guess.
For the record: It was not my decision that the shutters should be in one piece instead of two halves, and I did not decide the ungainly spacing / placement of the battens. The wood is good and I dare say the workmanship is sound, but the proportions are awful — it’s what happens when design decisions are left to timid stupid carpenters and their wealthy clients.
Oh, well … I got paid; it was quite good fun — so, not bad.
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As always, the attention to detail is outstanding. You mentioned in the last post the wood was swedish pine - do you know the species name?
Also, how does your work come to you? Advertising? Word of mouth? or do people just keep giving you money or delivering bags of gold until you say yes?