The biggest chore in making your own shutters is maching the slats. I made mine from basswood, which is stable and easy to work. However the sheer number required is daunting. My project required 18 per door x 6 doors.

I sized the basswood blanks so I would end up with 2 slats per blank with enough extra to allow for planer snipe on each end. I made a special jig which tipped up each side of the blank so I would create the desired profile.

Each slat was sanded after planing and before cutting to length. Vacuum was connected to orbital sander to reduce dust.

Special jigs were used to drive a crown staple into the top of each shutter and then through that staple into the shutter bar control.

Here are the slats attached to the control bar after driving the crown staples. The end of each slat has a hole drilled in the center to accept a plastic pivot pin which resides in the shutter frame stile.

Here are the finished shutters. The shutter frames were made from popular, which takes paint well. The plans were obtained from the New Yankee Workshop. Warning: there is a lot of figuring to do, since the shutter size must be matched to the window. Now I know why wooden shutters cost so much - it is quite an undertaking.