I have 600bf of 6/4 Sapele sitting in my shop waiting for me to turn them into functional raised panel shutters. I'm using a Freud entry door bit set and stile/rail construction with Domino tenons to put them together. We're in year 5 of remodeling our pre-1900 home and have fallen behind. Hopefully I'll start on them in the next 60 days. I cam about this after about 6 months of research talking to shutter manufacturers, custom door builders, reading online, and talking to my brother-in-law who has a window/gutter cleaning business and works on many high-end home in the Charlotte area (so he sees a lot of shutters).
I spoke to the lumber buyer at the local McDonald Lumber about material and had him looking at clear cedar and cypress initially. The mill where they get most of their hardwood and custom wood from advised against cypress as they could not get their hands on much old growth material anymore and it had longevity issues, and the clear cedar was north of $8/BF. He steered me towards sapele. A week later, when I went to order, the mill owner happened to be in the office talking to the lumber buyer and I was able to get them to S3S the lumber to 6/4 final with no extra charge (being in uniform helped)... ended up being $5.40/BF delivered to my door. Maybe not the greatest price possible, but a good value to me once you factor in the convenience factor.
Anyway, even though I have not started construction, something I've considered that would have reduced costs and would likely still yield the product I want (paint grade shutter, but the way) would be to use Extira or Miratec for the panel portions, keeping sapele for the stiles and rails. It would have been cheaper, I'd be less likely to have a panel warp post construction, and it will save me time putting shutters together instead of gluing panels.. I may still do it and keep the leftover sapele for other projects.
I think either miratec or extira (same product, miratec is planks extira is panels) would be great for board and batten, though miratec states in their installation instructions that shutters made from it should be non-functional.. however, I think if you laminate 2 pieces of 3/4 miratec or extira together to get a 6/4 final, the structural issues would fade.
I saw mention of using cellular PVC for shutters, however, during my research I read that it is not advisable to paint cellular PVC dark colors because it can cause it to overheat and deform. My shutters will be either black or a very dark green, so that left PVC out.
As far as hardware goes, shuttercraft.com has the best prices I could find and their staff can talk you through choosing the right hardware if you go the functional route. They also have some non-functional hardware designed to make the shutters look functional. If you go functional, you may have to mix and match pintle and hinge sizes (my casing is 7/8 deep and shutters will be 1-3/8 thick finished). Hardware is going to cost nearly as much as my lumber. I'm using New York style hinges, three per shutter (73" and 63" tall shutters). I wanted to be able to use the mortise hinges pointed out earlier in the thread, as they are significantly less expensive and don't require hold backs, however, they have to be mortised into the casing (mine is too shallow), don't work well in my asymmetrical casing vs shutter thickness and would hold the shutters closer to the window (covering all the casing) than I'd prefer.
If you want someone to build shutters for you, exteriorshutter.com (out of Texas) has the best prices I could find on custom made wood shutters anywhere. They only finish shutters for local delivery, so you'll still have to finish them once you get them. They use pine or cedar (your choice, cedar is more, of course) and can add any features you like, including operable louvers if you wanted them. Their panel shutters use an extira-like product for the panel portion, with the balance wood. The other shutters are all wood. Shuttercraft has pretty good prices as well.
Most of the other sites I checked were significantly higher than exteriorshutters and shuttercraft. A few offered a full synthetic product as well.
Finally, there are several sites that will make custom-ish non-functional vinyl shutters that will look close to correct size for most windows, especially if you mount them on the casing and use faux hardware.
decorativeshutters.com has shutters in 7,9,10,12,14.5,16.25, and 17.75" widths with heights customizable to within a 1/4".
