The LAS Raised Panel Shutter
At LAS we believe if you aren’t innovating or improving your products constantly, you are falling behind. We always have plans underway and in the design phase. Our goal is to lead the way for aluminum shutters and stay ahead of the competition.
With our decorative Homegard shutter line, we strive to make the most aesthetically pleasing products which deliver that artisan, pleasing look of wood shutters; but without the issues that come with wood in our environmental region, such as inevitable rotting, sagging, and annual repainting.
Our raised panel offering one of our most recent innovations. When manufacturing a wood raised panel or recessed panel shutter, a slab of wood is carved or routed around the edge to give that raised or recessed panel look. It is a relatively simple process that requires a router and the proper bit with the profile you want. Since it is not feasible to carve a slab of aluminum in the same way while being cost effective, we started the process of designing a raised panel shutter in 2012.
The challenges included designing an extruder friendly profile, designing a process to create very tight tolerance panels, and a lasting bonding process to tie it all together. At the time we started this process, there was no example in the market of what we were trying to achieve so we went through quite a few brainstorms and revisions and extrusion tooling.
Finally in 2014, we built our first raised panel shutters completely in house and it has been a popular new offering ever since. At this time, we were still the only company advertising and building such a shutter out of aluminum to the best of our knowledge; but the feedback was so positive, it wasn’t long before competitors’ suppliers came out with their versions of an aluminum raised panel shutter a year later.
We are proud to be leading the way for our industry and have many more projects in the design phase right now. We are excited for our new offerings coming Fall 2017.