Does anybody cut their own shingles

JimBuis · March 30, 2006, 12:33:14 PM

I was just wondering. I have read a whole lot about cutting siding. Does anybody cut their own shingles? I know in the Portland area there are tons of houses with wood shingles on them. If you cut your own, how do you do it? By the way, I'd prefer to not do it the hard way.........with a froe!! And no, I am not talking about an outdated hairstyle. ;D

Jim

Steve · March 30, 2006, 12:56:57 PM

Jim

I bought my own shingles from a guy up by Battleground. Does that count? We are putting them up now on the outside walls of the house. I don't know how they are done but I do know that a froe is used to split shakes and shingles are usually made of material that wouldn't make the grade for shakes.
We are sure getting lots of complements on ours though. I really like the look.

Bob Smalser · March 30, 2006, 01:02:20 PM

I haven't built it yet. but I intend to make a pivoting table to hold shingle bolts on edge so the Lucas can cut 8" shingles from bark to bark, similar to the siding attachment I use to mill beveled siding.

thedeeredude · March 30, 2006, 01:43:53 PM

IIRC, some guy on here made his own with a hydraulic woodsplitter. But I forget. I'm getting old, I'll be 19 in a couple months :D

Don P · March 30, 2006, 07:39:02 PM

There are shingle mills, look for the old timers called nubby, I've never worked on one but have been around some pre OSHA models. You sure wouldn't want your mind to wander around one of those.

Y'all probably aren't going to believe this but look in your codebook, they got us there too >:(.
It floored me, a local fellow was going to split out enough white oak shakes to redo a historic house when the powers that be threw that curve in. He found a grader, who had to then read up on how to grade shingles :

.

ohsoloco · March 30, 2006, 07:55:31 PM

Norwood makes a shingle jig for their sawmills. The guy that showed me his mill before I bought mine had one that he was using to cut cedar shingles for his house (he was also using them for the siding). When I built my smokehouse I didn't want to put any money into shingles, so I cut my own out of some dry white pine that I had lying around. I crosscut the boards to 16", turned them up on edge and drew a diagonal line across the edge, and then split each piece on my shop bandsaw to get two shingles. I simply installed them on pine sheathing. If you were to look at the shingles from the side, you'd see that they don't lay flat in the middle because they taper from a heavy 1" to nothing on the other side. They're still keeping the smokehouse nice and dry though

ibbob · March 30, 2006, 10:25:48 PM

Ya, I been sawin a few. Just 1/2 " boards off the mill chopped to 1' for a 5" reveal.

Time and nails is what it takes, more than anything else.

Don_Papenburg · March 30, 2006, 11:27:18 PM

I have seen a shingle mill that has a horizontal blade and a carage that holds the bolt at a slight angle as it is sawn . then pull back and drop the bolt ,clamp and saw . real slick .

JimBuis · March 31, 2006, 05:40:12 AM

I was actually referring to roofing shingles rather than siding. Can you use a band mill or a swinger to cut roofing shingles? Can you use material cut for siding and somehow use it for roofing instead?

Jim

Dana · March 31, 2006, 06:36:36 AM

I have the woodmizer shingle/lapsider attachment. It works fine, but does waste about an inch and a half that it can't cut from the bottom. You can control the taper and thickness of the shingle. If you cut them thick enough, the only difference between a roof shingle and a siding shingle would be the grade.

mike_van · March 31, 2006, 12:32:23 PM

My 2 cents - Jim, do you burn wood? Even a fireplace? If I got wood shingles for free, I wouldn't put them on my roof. The few chimney fires i've had have blown out sparks, embers & large chunks of what looks like pumice. Two houses I know of with hand splits have burned down from fires that started in chimneys, the last one this past Christmas eve - People were home, 2 fireplaces going, didn't even know it was on fire 'till it was too late, they got out, the house was lost. To each his own for sure, but I just wouldn't have them.

jrokusek · March 31, 2006, 12:38:56 PM

Any reason you couldn't use them on an outbuilding? I just got to thinking that may be an option if I follow a wild hair and build a solar kiln. Gosh the more I read and think about this the cost of the solar kiln is actually going down a bit!