I have friends who own louver presses, and who used to actually louver panels as part of their business. Sure, they use them still for certain projects, but it isn’t nearly as popular a modification as it once was. There was a time when you charged a certain amount per louver and people would just show up with a part and tell you what they wanted. Laying out louvers can be a real art form, but assuming you figure out how you want to lay it out, then the action of putting a louver in your material can be fairly straightforward if you have the right tool. In this case that tool is your home built louver press.
In this video you’ll see just how this dude makes his own louver press. His is made to fit inside his English wheel, but the truth is you could pretty easily make the same setup in your own stand so you would be ready to rock and roll. No, you aren’t going to knock out a million louvers in minutes, but if you are going to be doing stuff for your own projects you can make a neat addition to your shop. And if you set this up with an air over hydraulic instead of manual ram it would be much quicker and easier to do a full line of louvers.
Check it out and be inspired to make your own at home, I think we’ll build one once we’re in the new shop.
