Does anyone have any experience sawing clapboard siding? I'm building a house in upstate NY and am trying to use as much local wood from my land as possible.
Got quarter sawn red oak for floor drying in the barn, maple for cabinets and trim. I need to figure out siding options.
Anyway, I have access to white pine, hemlock, and a good stand of larch. Need advice on sawing out clapboards. Kiln dry or air?
Thanks for any help.
I am sure there are people with much more experience than I have at this. But I cut this siding on My Norwood, 6.5 wide boards. .75 tapered to .25. All I did was saw out a cant 6.5 wide and put a shim underneath one side, take a board and remove the shim. This is pine siding. In my opinion it looks the best. A lot of people put preservatives and stains on it. This has been up for about 2 years with no coatings. I have had a lot of request for sawing this siding. But I have only taken up a couple of offers for friends due to the fact that I just don't have time to do it.
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I've been milling mixed pine for my siding (predominately EWP). I decided to go thin and square with mine (½"x8") to keep the profile close to the wall, allow lots of overlap and good ventilation behind it. I'm milling with a chainsaw so kerf loss is significant and staying with the ½ inch decreases the number of cants I need, I may be in for a board splitting nightmare when it comes time to install it. If I'd picked up the large bandsaw earlier in the process I'd probably be milling cants and resawing tapers on the bandsaw.
Hemlock might be your best choise in terms of the longevity of the lumber, but I agree that pine has a little nicer look to it... More contrast between the knots and clear wood. I haven't worked with Larch but I don't know of any reason why it wouldn't be suitable.
Air dried outside in a shed is fine for siding, after all that's where it's going to live, But if you intend to paint it then getting it into a kiln hot enough to set the sap would be a good idea.
If you are going to be making a lot of tapered siding, you may wanna consider buying or making a siding attachment for your mill.
The cant will remain locked in place and all you need to do is rock it back and forth sorta.
Another option is to set your mill up to resaw on a taper from standard boards.
Arky gave a good demo in at least one thread around here.
Got an order for clapboard siding in. Have any of you just put shims down under the cant and sawed it out that way? If it's supposed to be 1/2" on one side and 3/4" on the other, how would you go about doing that?
Trile and error.... Depending on the width, I would use a 1/4" shim and drop 3/4" take a cut, take the shims out and drop another 3/4" and see what you have, and adjust to what you need.
Thanks Marcel...7" wide is what he wants.
Cut the end of the cant square to the timber, both left and right and up and down.
Draw lines on end to show the shape of the clapboard.
Till cant until line is level with saw blade. Measure till from bottom of cant to bed rail.
Make shim this distance.
Put in shim(s) as needed to clamp on angle, and cut to see if it is right.
Take out shim(s) and drop down the butt thickness and cut again.
Over and over and you should be able to make as much as you can out of a tall cant.
This is what I did and it worked for me.
Jim Rogers
I made a few pieces of bevel siding for a contractor customer who was trying to match existing siding. There was exactly 1/2" of taper so I squared up a cant of the proper width and used a couple of pieces of 1/2" keystock to tilt the cant.
As described: shim, saw, remove shim, lower head, saw, and repeat. Do a couple of trial cuts measure to figure out how far to drop the sawhead each time.
Keystock is a greatly overlooked material. I buy it in 1 foot lengths in various sizes: 1/8", 3/16", 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", 1/2". It's always very accurate and is easy to saw, drill, tap, and harden.
I did my workshop in clapboard siding I cut with my bandmill. I had to use balsam fir. Only thing avaiable in our area. I picked out nice clear logs , mostly butt junks. Sawed them in 7" cants then sawed of 1/2" boards. No taper. I think taper is better but too time consuming with out a jig.
I then air dried these boards for a year. Gave them a coat of white latex stain both sides. Installed than on the building. A piece of tar paper behind every butt joint. I did not have many as I had mostly 12' material. A second coat of stain after they were installed and done. I am very pleased on how they look and seem to be holding up very well in what is sometimes a very harsh Enviroment
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Quebecnewf
Mornin' Newf,
Not many people go to the trouble of putting a piece of felt behind each clapboard joint.Very good practice,the old timers are nodding their head in approval.
To say your climate is sometimes harsh is more than a mild understatement.As usual,very nice work on your part.Your place should be a test lab for exterior coatings.
I agree with Raphael saw 1/2 inch by any width 1 inch 2 inch overlap much easier and works just fine. air space in back is a plus. tapered siding has air space also. just smaller .just make sure your trim is thick enough to cover ends by 1/8 to 1/4 inch rl
I always put a piece of tar paper behind the butt joints as well as back prime all surfaces including the ends. By back priming, the clapboards will have less tendency to cup and hold paint or stain much better by retarding moisture absorbtion from the back side. Also, when installing cedar siding, I wash all boards with a bleach solution to kill mold spores so that it does not turn black. This I learned from 2 high end painting contractors. I have some photos somewhere of a house and a quest house I built that were painted 15 and 5 years ago respectivley and each looks the same.
Below is vertical cedar siding. As the siding is flat against the wall, I installed typar rain slicker so the siding could breath. http://www.typar.com/products/typar-plus-home-slicker/ not cheap but worth it.
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4x4 go to WM by you and get a clapboard attachment for your mill. Or come and buy mine. :D :D
The guy with the 06 40 super at the excavation companys yard has the attachment, said I can use it whenever I want since I sharpened blades for him but I hate to borrow something unless I really have to!
Do a search for the "Arky Resaw". That's the method I have used and I found it to be way more gooder than the WM bevel siding attachment.
I pulled it up, but don't quite understand how it works..chain the head to the bed, clamp a 2x10x12 to the bed and a 1x4 with a slot for the blade to go through and then push boards through without cutting your fingers? ??? I'm sure it works but don't quite get it!
4x4,
I think it works best with two people, one feeding and one pulling the cut pieces through and stacking them.
Herb
As one board is nearly finished, use the next board to push it through. Use a piece of 1x to push the final board through. It definitely helps to have someone removing and stacking the cut pieces.
I have wm sideing attachment works great I cut a can't 8 inch and rotate level it is a lot easy then useing shims and is more accurate and faster you can also use for wood shlngles
I did one job making 9 inch siding for a customer using wedges it worked. I was not happy with it he was. He was trying to match the siding on an old house he was putting new windows in. I bought the WM resaw attachment it is worth it if you are making siding. I don't use it as much as I would like. But when I do I like it a lot. Rod
Klicker,
That is an awesome town name, Tatamagouche, how do you pernounce it?
Tat-uh-muh-gooch?
4x4, yes, you chain the head to the axle or something. Take the jig, put it on the bed and shim it to get the bevel you like. Clamp it in place with the log clamp. Once you do test cuts to get things right, feed through with wild abandon, a partner is helpful but you can do it yourself too. I should have said at the beginning, you pre-saw your boards to 1" or whatever you want to split. One of the benefits of this method is you can saw, stack and sticker your lumber and let it dry before you resaw it. I've used the Arky jig, and the WM attachment, and I'll take the Arky every time. YMMV ;)
4x4 Ta ta mau gche is about as close as I can get.
Barbender I have not seen or used a Akry only saw a photo of one.
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I've made and installed bunches of it. SYP works pretty good. This was an old sharecropper home I restored.
And quite well I might add. 8)
Using shims I sawed a solid wall cabin out of very small white pine poles. Sawed to 6x6 , lots of wain, shimmed one side and made a cut. Then had one angled side and one clapboard. Customer had his solid wall cabin looking as if clapboard siding and a number of clapboards for a small garden shed. Was a bit time consuming, but doable.
Using all the great advice here on cutting claps, spent an hour total test cutting some dead pine (LT 40 manual). From one cant, cut three 6.5" x 1/2" x 10' pcs. Then, used a couple pieces of 1/4" iron, u-shaped, to fit over two bed rails to create 1/2" cantilever and began cutting angled claps: lift cant, slide iron under edge of cant, cut to get 1/2" at fat side, 1/8" at small; when through log, step back, release log clamp,remove iron, re-clamp, return head,begin cutting again. I managed 8 angled claps and was left with one 1 1/8" x 6.5" board at bottom.
Think I like the regular (angled) clapboards better. Question: how do I sticker them? They are pretty dry as is, but if I cut live pine cants, I think they need some sort stickering so they don't warp. Thanks for any ideas...all the best, Rob.
I stacked and stickered them as if they were regular boards.
Jim Rogers
Quote from: Furby on September 18, 2006, 01:25:53 PM
If you are going to be making a lot of tapered siding, you may wanna consider buying or making a siding attachment for your mill.
The cant will remain locked in place and all you need to do is rock it back and forth sorta.
Having bought a Woodmizer lap siding/shingle maker attachment, (not the Re-saw attachment) which after one use, hung on the wall of my saw building until somebody came along and bought it for a song, I can tell you 2 pcs of plywood shims works better, and a HECK of a lot cheaper !
The problems with an attachment are:
You saw a cant. I saw mine 8" wide by whatever height I can get......that may be 12-18" (or more) by 8-16' long. Care to guess what a pine cant 8"x15" x 16' weighs ? I don't have a clue, other than to tell you "DANG" heavy ! So with plywood shims, you cock the cant with a peavy, stick the shims under one side, saw your first piece, then un-cock the cant, saw the 2nd pc, and so on.
With an attachment, you wrestle the cant off to one side, wrestle the attachment onto the mill bed, then wrestle the cant into the attachment. (Of course, with shims, you've avoided the wrestling match, and are already half way thru that cant)
THEN you wrestle the fool attachment off the mill bed, saw another log, and repeat the whole process. At the end of the day, the shim method will produce 5 times the siding, with a whole lot less work.
The ONLY thing I could say good about the WM attachment was if you wanted to make sawed wood shingles, it certainly was the trick for that. You clamp 6 blocks of wood in it, and take 6 shingles off at a pass, simply using their handle/cam deal to cock and un-cock the blocks endwise.
But for siding, it was an overpriced PITA. I don't think they even make them anymore, and if you run up on a used one, don't buy it for siding. I've sawed many, many thousands of linear feet of lap siding with two plywood shims and it works just fine.
Thomas Bandsaw has just a lever on top that tilts the saw head up and down. Put the log on,saw the cant and just flip the lever to tilt the head. No need to remove the cant anymore. I saw it at a show last year. I thought it was a slick idea. Kinda makes me want to sell mine and buy the newer model. ;D
Jim Rogers--thanks, will try just regular stickers.
TnAndy--Yup, the (KISS) shim-the-cant method is the way to go, especially being a Mizer, huh, cheap like me :D. All the best, Rob.
I cut mine 8" wide, leave 6" exposed, the rest covered by the next layer. To dry, I just put on sticks the same as any lumber. Dry 6mo or so, depending on species, time of year, etc.
Picture tutorial: (shot some black paint on the end of a poplar cant to make pics better)
Get a log down to a cant....take your side lumber off as normal. With this log, I'll end up with an 8x13 cant.
[img width=550 shutterflyoffsitephotosnotallowed.com/media/47a5d837b3127ccee935f577d2a700000030O01Acs2TJq0cMwe3nwE/cC/f%3D0/ls%3D00308045223920150617002340774.JPG/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/[/img]http://[img width=550 shutterflyoffsitephotosnotallowed.com/media/47a5d837b3127ccee93421ddf22b00000030O01Acs2TJq0cMwe3nwE/cC/f%3D0/ls%3D00308045223920150617002416527.JPG/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/[/img]
[img width=550 shutterflyoffsitephotosnotallowed.com/media/47a5d837b3127ccee9348edf33d600000030O01Acs2TJq0cMwe3nwE/cC/f%3D0/ls%3D00308045223920150617002425854.JPG/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/[/img]http://I cock my cant to the inside, and put two 5/8" plywood shims on the outside bed rails under the cant. Take your first piece off. Thickness is determined by eyeball. Silly me, I thought that WM attachment would come with some kind of gauge....nope.....eyeball it.....
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Take shims out, cant flat on bedrail. Saw next pc.
[img width=550 shutterflyoffsitephotosnotallowed.com/media/47a5d837b3127ccee9359df1d21500000030O01Acs2TJq0cMwe3nwE/cC/f%3D0/ls%3D00308045223920150617002502211.JPG/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/[/img]http://Repeat until you run out of cant.
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Makes great siding.....every building around my place has it.
One of four 4cord firewood sheds:
[img width=550 shutterflyoffsitephotosnotallowed.com/media/47a1d839b3127ccefd3170f1ddfd00000050O01Acs2TJq0cMwe3nwE/cC/f%3D0/ls%3D00308045223920110618104737321.JPG/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/[/img]http://Shop building:
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Gas Station:
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Well, apparently there is a rather complicated trick to posting pictures here I clearly don't know....and am not inclined to learn......
Quote from: TnAndy on June 22, 2016, 10:15:34 PM
...
Well, apparently there is a rather complicated trick to posting pictures here I clearly don't know....and am not inclined to learn......
TnAndy,
The Forestry Forum does have a "different" method of using photos in posts than most other forums. The reason it has this method and rule is that it essentially eliminates the situation where you get the dreaded error due to the photo being removed for the external site after it has been posted here.
The process requires you to upload photos to a gallery located at the FF and then reference that photo. This way the photo want go missing here when it's deleted from sutterfly or any other external service.
The process is actually quite easy to master. You can find all the instructions here: https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,61788.0.html (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,61788.0.html)
I'm sure we'd all like to see your photos if you could manage to make the time to master the process here.
Herb