Poplar barn siding??

[Thackery]

I need to replace my barn siding and am thinking of Poplar.

Anybody use poplar before or have any comments.    These are my intentions.
All siding is vertical.
I can get it locally sawn.
Probably random widths.
I would like to lap the sides.    I would like to prevent the gaps left by shrinkage of the green wood.
I will have to Dado the lap.   I think?  Is a 1/2" lap enough??
I have read that poplar works nice green but is hard when dry.
I will be nailing this to chestnut and other timbers that are 100 years hard as rock,  any helpful ideas on nailing would be great.   Galvanized nails????
Should it only be nailed in the middle of the board until after some seasoning has been done and then renail??

Any ideas,  experience, or opinions.

Ash is pretty cheap around here now due to the Emerald Ash Borer.    Never heard of ash siding,  but I am really new to wood working of any sort.
Would Ash be usable for siding??

Thanks for the help in advance.

Thackery

[thecfarm]

Thackery,welcome to the forum.This has been brought up in the past.But it's good to talk about it again.New ideas are good.There is a search button on the top of this page that will keep you busy on past posts.Keep changing your words to narrow it down.Need to know what kind of poplar you are talking about,tulip,aspen etc.Update your profile so we know what area you are talking about will be a big help too.Are these your own logs?Have you thought about board and batten?

[Thackery]

I would think it was Tulip Poplar but that is a good question for the mill.

I have considered board and batten.

What dimesions are used for board and batten?

That would cut down on the lap milling by about 1-2 thousand feet.

Thackery

[thecfarm]

I have 10 inch boards and 4 inch batten on my horse run in.BB various on what you want.I feel this looks good,others say 6 and 3 look good.Whatever you want.

[Dale Hatfield]

Tulip Poplar is fine for siding . Its on the barn here.  I would board and batten if your worried about air gap.
My sister in laws  bank barn has white pine  on it. Its been their for years .as long as it  4 inches or so off the ground it will be fine. Needs a drip edge.
Poppel is called aspen here. not used much . but i can show ya a small shed thats sided in it better than 20 years old.
I really think poplar is one of the great unused woods in this part of the world.  It doenst sell well at the big mill. But it really has advantages  wide  long boards are pretty easy to come by. makes great timbers. great for utility  and finish work .
Dale

[ohsoloco]

On my house I used (stained) white pine board and batten.  Boards are random width, 8"-14", and the battens are 2-3/4".  I just left enough gap between the boards to get the nail into for the batten.  I really like the random width look    Not a real close picture, but here it is:

[Joel Eisner]

I sided our timber frame house with Poplar and am getting ready to do the same on the addition.  We are using B&B on the first floor with 1/4 in thick poplar shingles on the second floor and gable ends etc.  It stains up real nice.  We pre stained all the siding.

[Thomas-in-Kentucky]

If it is available for similar money, oak will last longer with less attention (50+ years without paint).  There are 4 barns on this farm ranging from 80 to 50 years old, all sporting the original oak siding - one of the barns has never been painted.  If you have overhangs on your roof, and the bottoms of the boards do not get splashed near the ground (i.e. the barn sill is say 12" above the ground), then I agree that poplar is fine too.

I would use galvanized nails if you don't want to see streaking.  Otherwise, I think regular nails will outlast the boards.  Spiral shank galvanized would be best.  Believe it or not, they're easier to drive into hard hardwood than smooth shank.  If one starts to bend on you, it kind of fixes itself as you keep driving it in.  I would go ahead and use at least two nails at every location to prevent cupping of the boards while they dry on the barn.  The wood will still shrink in spite of the nails and nothing bad will come of it.  1/2" lap is cutting it close.  I sided a barn with (green) white oak 4 years ago and pulled all of the gaps tight.  The gaps are now as large as 1/2" (or more).  These boards ranged from 6" to 10" wide and were one inch thick.

Good luck!

[Thackery]

Thanks for the input from everyone.    Board and batten seems to be winning out.
Board and batten would be using a lot more material.   
Do you use 1" for the board and 1" for the batten?   Sounds like a lot to hang up there.
Any other opinions on nails,   what length?
The reason I wanted to lap was to minimize air gap and minimize wood use. 
Any one have opinions on using Ash?
Keep those opinions coming,   I am still repairing a few items on the frame, siding will be next.

Thackery

[beenthere]

thackery
I use screws for board and batten....coated or stainless.

To help avoid splitting from shrinkage, put one (or two close together, like 1½") fasteners near the center of the board, and one in the center of the batten. Let the edges of the board float under the batten.

Leaving a 1" gap between boards, covered by a 2 or 2½" batten, will not use more wood than the plan to have the overlap you originally mentioned. IMO    And the B&B will be a much better job in the end.

[thecfarm]

I used 1 inch on my BB, but I have mine own trees. I would think ¾ would hold up just fine. I think I used 10 penny gav nails to hold everything together. Keep in mine, if you put 2 boards together when they are green you will have just about ½" between the boards when they dry from the little I've seen. I talking about your ship lap. That's what the batten is for, to hide the gap. I use gav nails on everything I built. My FIL hates them. Says they pull out hard. First off, why are you pulling them out? Second, that's why I use them, they don't work out of the wood.

[Don P]

On my barn I used screws from the backside, wrapped it in osb and felt first then used a 16ga air trim nailer from the outside to shoot 4 or 6 little nails through to hold it up. Go inside and find the nails, screw back with a length that doesn't protrude. Around here powder post would be after all of the species mentioned, I'd think about a borate bath then a water repellent finish if its a woody site. Poplar is pretty much self gapping, I would go with board and batt. Poplar B+B is used a lot here. I have worked on 140+ yr old poplar clapboard siding several times.

If I remember right ring shanks have the highest pullout, a spiral has slightly better pullout after that initial slip. Either in a hardened threaded fastener is allowed full design value under any moisture condition, for instance installed green and then dried. Under those conditions a typical wire nail has 25% withdrawal strength and 40% shear strength as compared to a common wire nail in dry wood that stays dry. Deformed nails are the nail for green lumber. Your frame is dry so its not as critical but I'd still use a spiral or a screw.
Cordless drills are a great tool for nailing around dry hardwood framing. For common nails a 1/8" pre-bore usually works good.

[ljmathias]

Interesting discussion on nails- has anyone used the new (award winning) Hurriquake nails from Bostich?  I bought some and they hold like crazy- tried to pull some out and broke the board instead.  Problem is, they don't come galvanized and the rust well- meaning they won't work at all for exterior unless you like that streaked look.

Lj

[thecfarm]

Are those air gun nails?

[ohsoloco]

I used the Maze galvanized spiral nails for my siding.  Holding well, but then again it hasn't been a year yet. 

[ljmathias]

Thecfarm: yes, they're for nail guns and they shoot fine.  Other major problem is that they are a little shorter than I'm used to- I usually use 3+" galvanized smooth and the hurriquakes are just over 2 1/2" which means you only have an inch on the holding side of a "2X" piece of lumber; and if you use full-size or rough cut, you have even less.  However, I just put together a big barn door with store bought 2X's of various widths glued to 1/2" plywood located strategically and nailed with the hurriquakes- just the right length if I point off-vertical a little, which I normally do anyway on alternating nails to improve pull-out resistance.  These things really hold great for applications like this (the door is sided with metal sheathing so the nails will not see weather... I hope).

Lj

[thecfarm]

I don't have a nail gun,but do feel the nail guns do a much better job in staying in the wood than I can do with my 20 oz estwing and my right arm.  ;)

[ljmathias]

Nail guns definitely have their place- especially when I'm holding a 16' 2X4 out 18" for a fly rafter with one hand, holding a hammer in the other and trying to drive a nail I'm holding in my other, other hand... which is more hands than most people have, including me.  Or when I'm trying to drive a nail between a rafter and a brace into a post with 1" clearance and no room to swing my hammer.

In fact, my main use of a hammer these days is to drive home the air gun nails and seat the boards firmly against each other and/or the glue between them.  Just can't get excited anymore about hand-drives- long,slow way to build something if you're working alone mostly....

Lj

[Don P]

I've always wanted a third arm and a tail  :D
The hurriquakes look like a great nail, especially in the .131 bore. They are not available in a framing length though from what I could find, at 2-1/2" its a sheathing nail only, to get to its design strength it calls for 11 shank diameters into the main member, about 1-7/16". They look like they would be good for this application.

[ljmathias]

They work great for sheathing/siding- just don't ever, ever make a mistake that you used to fix by pulling a few nails and re-nailing.  Ain't going to happen with these nails-once in, they're in for good.

Lj

[Ironwood]

Thomas in Kentucky is right on the money, poplar is great, and oak even better. With the current oak prices so low I would try to get oak. I have seen many barns w/ poplar, it ages fast (weathered grooves and greying), older oak barns hold up much better.


      Ironwood

[Thackery]

Thanks for everyones ideas and opinions so far.  Keep them rolling in.
I got sidetracked on a home project for the wife (and myself)   and have not been able to pursue the siding much.
Just like everyone else this is a busy time of year.

I will check on the both the poplar and the oak.   
I like the board and batten.   The reason I was looking at a lap was to try and hang fewer boards,  less work, etc.
I will be working mostly by myself.
I have been enjoying the posts about nail guns,   I think it would be a great investment for this job.
It may have been in one of the posts but I don't recall seeing it.   Are the batten boards 1" thick as well???
One other question I have about the siding.   On one end of the barn I will be siding 3 levels, the gable end the second floor and the ground floor.   I tore off and will not be replacing a shed roof that went two stories on this end, so I can't follow the existing siding.
So,  this is what I'm thinking.    Side the ground floor first,  and then layer and overlap with the second,  same with he gable end.   

Thanks again,    enjoy the spring.

Thackery

[Jim_Rogers]

Usually battens are 1" thick.
And you can step out each layer of siding, with the bottom one being put on first then the next one out stepped out the thickness of the bottom siding and then the last stepped out the thickness of the two lower layers.
Sometimes the bottom of the layer of the gable siding lines up with the eave to make it the same.
It creates what is called a shadow line....

Jim Rogers

[Ironwood]

I have seen vertical siding with flitch(natural edge) battens that are as wide as the backround boards, essentially it creats a REALLY nice looking building, you could do the same with square edged boards.The "backer" would only need to over lap 2-3" or so. I loved the look,very unusual and nice.

           Ironwood

[Don P]

With square edged boards its called board and board here, looks nice.