Making floor vent plates?

[Philip Florio]

I'd like to make my own floor plates. I'm thinking of using Red Oak.

I'm not concern about the mechanism to being able to close them, just wondering how to cut out the flutes. I'm wondering if the Rockler Router Fluting Jig might be the solution? http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?p...28636&pn=28636

The first picture looks like I can cut through the material all together, if not maybe I can resaw the piece to reveal the slots and simply use the drum sander to finish.

Thanks,
Phil

[Steve Haley]

I'd just use a router table and fence with a spiral up-cut bit. Clamp two stop blocks on the table for consistant length slots.

[Pat Meeuwissen]

Phil, I can't help you with the mechanism but I think lookin at the first picture I would be VERY concerned about the strength of that unit if you placed a leg of a chair or hutch onto it. The ones I have seen on the jobsite were made from oak to match the hardwood being installed. Pat

[Myk Rian]

Phil, I can't help you with the mechanism but I think lookin at the first picture I would be VERY concerned about the strength of that unit if you placed a leg of a chair or hutch onto it. The ones I have seen on the jobsite were made from oak to match the hardwood being installed. Pat

+1 on that.

[Dan Friedrichs]

+1 what Steve said. Just bump the fence back the same distance each time to keep the slots equally spaced.

You could make them closeable by making two identical plates which sit on top of each other and slide over each other.

[Philip Florio]

I'll try it on the router table.

Using red oak I was thinking of cutting the slots parallel to the length, in 2 sections.

Phil

[Roger Everett]

Philip:

This is somewhat ( I believe ) what you are looking for. This one is a prototype for hallway light covers, but the same idea, in that it is an angled louver design ( in this 45 degrees ). I made the louver part on the TS w/ a 1/4" daddo blade set at 45 degrees. I laid out start and stop lines and lowered the blade, positioned the blank and raised the blade, and moved the blank forward and back to lay-out lines, then moved the fence to the next cut. Ofcourse it took some layout figuring to get the spacing rigth, it has 1/4 " blade and 1/4" between cuts.
Another way is to use cope and stile bits and router. Make narrow rails and stiles ( short diam. is stile, but leave long ). Then make extra pcs. of rails. These extra pcs., you rip to 1/4' wide at 45 or other angle. You also need some stock at rail cope along length, which you rip narrow and use to cut spacers (1/4" long, at angle , to use as spacers between louvers ). Glue it all together leaving stiles long and trim them flush to rails when all glued up. If I'm being clear.
A lot of work really, but you can order wood louvered register covers from a company ( in several wood species ) that advertises in Fine Home building, or several if you google wood register covers.

Roger

[Dave Lash]

Home Depot carries a line of wood floor registers, it may pay to look at them to see how they are constructed.

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

[Mike Cruz]

Believe it or not, I actually made them for my house (well, my last house, not this one). I needed a custom size that I couldn't find premade.

What I did, IIRC, was I made the frame. The two long pieces (about 12" long) had a dado run down the inside edge. The two end pieces did not. The slats were made of a block of wood that had, oh, pooh, how do I explain this...double rabbets, or a tennon alone the long ends (to fit into the dados at a later step). Then I took this block to the TS, and crosscut 3/16" strips off the block of wood on an angle (maybe 30 degrees or so?...I don't remember). Since the double rabbets/edge tennon was the same thickness as the dados, they glued in very nicely and easily (spaced 3/16" apart). I alternated their direction (left half pointed left and right half pointed right, with a middle piece that was straight).

Wow, reading that back, I don't know how good of a picture I just painted. If you don't get it or just have other questions, feel free to ask and I'll try again.

[Van Huskey]

First, I had planned to do this, my reaserch including 2 HVAC installers and a mech engineer made it clear it was a bad idea. You can't get the total clear cross section large enough not to reduce the systems efficiency and keep any significant amount of strength. I was also warned off of any of the commercial wood vents. YMMV

[Mike Cruz]

At 210 lbs I walked across them without so much as a squeek. The airflow, from what I understand, is dependant on your air handler, and the number of vents you have open. If you only have 4 vents, then yes, you may be getting too much restriction. But if you have enough of them, you should be fine.

If the what I described (the ones I made) restrict the flow too much, I don't see how doing it how you are proposing would be any different... not an accusation, just a lack of understanding.

In the ones I made, the reason for the size of the wooden slats is for strength. And the reason for the size of the gaps is so things don't fall through. Sure, you could make the gaps bigger to accomodate air flow, but you might "lose" things down them...including losing som ankles from shoe heels slipping through, or getting caught.

[Pat Meeuwissen]

www.woodvents.cn/floor-register-vents.html
This is a link from a google image search for oak floor registers. There were a ton of hits. I believe the center one shown in the above link would provide the best stability. Pat

[Brad Schafer]

always thought this would be a nice task for a carvewright...

[Brian Backner]

I just built two wooden floor registers for a kitchen remodel. They were built with 3/8" thick by 1.5" high red oak slats that were cut, egg crate style, and assembled with 7/8" square holes. They allow for plenty of air flow - granted they are 8x12" overall - and they hold my weight (218#) with absolutely no problem. Commercial ones that I had looked at were even less robust - 3/4" high/thick and made with 1/4" thick wood - though they tended to be smaller at 4x10 or 3x12".

Brian
Taxachusetts