Taking an Old Vent and Replacing It With a Custom Made Beautiful Handmade Vent

Learn how to make an Air Conditioner vent cover. This replaces the vent in my kitchen. Disclaimer-I'm not an HVAC person so if there is an issue with this restricting to much air or not blocking other items from coming in its on you not me. I've had one of these in my bathroom vent for over a year now and its been working great.

You are going to need several pieces of hardwood planed to around 1/8th of an inch, maybe slightly thicker if you want but I would recommend not going thicker than 1/4 inch. You will also need some way to cut across the grains with a high degree of accuracy.

The very first step of this build is to get very good measurements of the opening that your vent will be sitting in. If there are places where screws will be used to hold it to the wall or ceiling make sure to note exactly where they are. After you have your wood planed down and your measurements set start by gluing the exterior box, or the face frame. I found what I felt were the prettiest pieces of walnut to use as my face frame. I used CA glue to glue these together. CA glue is great for something like this because they will be reenforced later, I don't trust CA glue for a long term glue up, I used Titebond 2 for my wood glue. My measurements were 9 1/2 x 5 3/4. This was the exterior dimensions of the hole in my wall, so my face frame needed to start at these dimensions or slightly smaller. I used a piece of MDF wrapped in wax paper to help me keep my face frame flat, glue doesn't stick to wax paper so it helps to keep around the shop for tasks like that. After I have the face frame glued together I gave it a quick sand to make sure there is no globs of glue sticking up, so that the next piece will have a good clean surface to glue to.

Now I glued the box that will go inside the wall, it is very important to get this dimensionally correct. If its to large it won't fit in the hole but if its to small it won't stay in the hole. This isn't to say that you don't have a little bit or room for error but you do not have a ton so be careful and remember to measure twice. Now cut your pieces for the interior box. If you notice in the pictures I made the long pieces reach all the way across the top and bottom and the verticil rails sit inside the long pieces, you need to do the opposite on the interior box, This allows the wood glue to help hold your face frame together and is super important. I also cut some thin pieces and made the interior box and the exterior box flush or near to flush on the inside open square. This gave me a little bit more glue area and a place to glue the vent pieces to as well. I used a mix of wood glue and CA glue on these pieces, wood glue for strength and CA glue because clamps don't really fit into these areas.

Now is the time to get a good podcast or audiobook started. You are going to want to come up with some type of pattern. My pattern was a 1, 2, 2, 1 pattern. That means I am going to need 4 rows, so 3 pieces going horizontally across the vent. I cut these using a crosscut sled on the table saw. I also always find it easier to mark where the cuts are going to be by laying it where its going to be and making a mark. I find this to be more accurate than measuring, its easier as well. So I cut these 3 pieces to size, sometimes its better to cut them a tiny bit long and then sneaking up on the size needed. After they are cut to size apply a little glue and up them in. I did use both CA glue and wood glue here but after the first row was completed I did leave it alone for a few hours so that the wood glue would be set up nicely and a bit more stable. After I have the pieces glued in that will make my rows I made marks on the top and bottom of the face frame where my first and last pieces will be, the two middle rows will be be in between each of the columns from the first and last row. A nice long carpenters square is super helpful here. If I had thought about it beforehand I would have done the top and bottom rows at the same time and first, and then the two middle rows. But doing it the way I did, from the top down, worked well and I was able to get them fairly close to in line, close enough that nobody is going to notice without close inspection of an air conditioner vent near the ceiling of my kitchen. I also made a couple of the pieces tilt or lean different directions so that the air gets moved around the kitchen. Now that everything is glued together I sanded everything I could up to 220 grit.

after everything is sanded to 220 grit I raised the grain by wiping a wet paper towel over everything and letting it dry. After it was dry I sanded it with 220 again. I then hung it in our spray booth and sprayed it with a quick coat of spray shellac. I let this dry and did a bit of sanding and sprayed it 2 more times. Then I allowed this to dry for a full 2 days, I was letting it dry and not just busy and forgot about it obviously. After the two days I gave it a quick sanding and now used spray lacquer since it creates a stronger film finish. I am not worried about this getting much of a beating but sealing everything with shellac and lacquer will help the wood from drying out as bad even though its having hot and cold air that is super dry blowing by it all the time. Like I said I have had one of these in my bathroom for the last year and so far its still going strong. Now all you have to do is take down your old metal vent and place your new vent in its place. Hopefully, if you measured and built to those measurements, everything will fit together and you will have an amazing new vent to show off to your friends.