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Best finish for green board and batten siding?

Started by Joel Eisner, June 13, 2006, 12:59:38 PM

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Joel Eisner

We are nearing placing the siding on our timber frame coach house.  The frame is enclosed with 2x4 panels covered with osb and house wrap.  We have a stack of tulip poplar logs next to the mill that we will be cutting into b&b siding and would like to cut, dunk in a finish, drip dry and nail up on the same day.  What is the best finish to use? We have been using Jasco Copper Brown water based preservative on the porch posts etc and like the color etc.  http://www.jasco-help.com/products/prod_wp.htm

Does anyone have other suggestions or should we continue to use this stuff?

Thanks

Joel
The saga of our timberframe experience continues at boothemountain.blogspot.com.

scsmith42

Joel, my kiln is presently empty.  If you want to dry the wood before nailing it up bring a couple of thousand bd feet over.

Scott
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

moosehunter

I hope that Jasco is a good product, I did my porch with it last year!! Air dried Red pine and Spruce.
"And the days that I keep my gratitude
Higher than my expectations
Well, I have really good days".    Ray Wylie Hubbard

ohsoloco

I'd also like to hear of a good finish for B&B siding.  I cut mine a few months ago from some huge white pine I picked up, and plan on installing it next summer.  I'd love to leave it natural, but want to keep the carpenter bees out of it (they're having a feast on the smoke house siding right now).  I don't want to paint it, and would like some type of clear sealer for it. 

Raphael

My supplier carries Cabot products, they have an exterior use only product called Clear Solution that I like.  The natural has got just a hint of brown to it that brings out the grain.  I haven't seen any evidence of the bee's bothering anything treated with it.  Could be they're just to busy ventilating the soffets on my father's barn.  ;)
... he was middle aged,
and the truth hit him like a man with no parachute.
--Godley & Creme

Stihl 066, MS 362 C-M & 24+ feet of Logosol M7 mill

ohsoloco

Yeah, they seem to really like the boards that are horizontal.  They did bore into a few vertical boards on the smokehouse, but just the other day I saw a whole bunch of holes in the soffit  :( 

Raphael, is that Clear Solution some type of varnish, or more of an oil  ???

Raphael

It's more of an oil, good penetration and little or no gloss (what gloss there is fades rapidly).
... he was middle aged,
and the truth hit him like a man with no parachute.
--Godley & Creme

Stihl 066, MS 362 C-M & 24+ feet of Logosol M7 mill

solodan

I am no expert, but from my observations I would only recomend using oil based products on green lumber. I am a big fan of oil based finishes, and rarely use water based products. I have noticed that when ever mold develops under the finish, that it was on a piece of green lumber finished with a water based product.  It has never happened to me, but I just saw it happen recently to a neighbor of mine, who clear coated some green cedar posts with a water base finish. Maybe the oil base finish is more breatable. like I said just my observation. :)

UNCLEBUCK

I put on wide boards and battens (ash) straight off the sawmill onto my shack and it had 2x6 walls with 2x4's between the studs going across every 2 foot up , 5/8ths osb sheets and tyvek housewrap over that . The ash boards looked great and that beautiful fresh sawn color .

Held that color for one year without any kind of a finish then started turning a dull grey/silver weathered look . Ok fine .

The problem I had was when the sun hit those nice soaking wet boards straight off the mill and fastened into the 2x4 cross blocking with a good 3 inch hi-thread screw , the boards cupped and kept cupping and never stopped cupping , went to bigger diameter screws with a big washer type head and even then it still pulled screws just like they were not even there.

The boards never had a chance to get any drying against the housewrap side . I knew it would happen but never in my wildest dream did I think it would rip big heavy duty screws out like popcorn !

Made a hayrack with the same leftover ash and used just nails for fastening and left the hayrack out in the sun for a year and no cupping and nice flat boards because both sides of the boards on the hayrack were able to dry evenly because the wind was able to pass equally .

Someday I am going to rip all my siding off and burn it in the woodstove and replace it with the same rough sawn ash that has dried properly for a year .  Glad I have alot of ash .

If your trick works of treating both sides of the board before putting it on I hope you give a report after its on . Just wanted to tell you what actually happened to me when the backside of the board has no breeze against a wall and the sun takes a hold of it .  :)
UNCLEBUCK    bridge burner/bridge mender

ohsoloco

UB, that's what I've always been afraid of, which is why I'm letting mine dry before installing it. 

I used a waterbased finish on a piece of furniture....ONCE  ;)

GF

I used Cabot Australian Timber Oil on the pine B&B siding I put up.  Its considered a clear solution, it seemed to make the pine a little more yellow or brighter and highlighted the knows.  Its consists of Tung Oil, and Linseed Oil.  I really like the way it made the pine seem to come to life.

bman

Here in W. Oregon we have carpenter ants, but no wood devouring bees. Do those buggers sting, swarm or nest like, say yellow jackets?

ohsoloco

bman, I've read that the male carpenter bees are very aggressive (buzzing up in your face and such), but can't sting.  The females, however, are able to sting.  Never been stung by one yet.  They actually chew a perfectly round hole (maybe a little smaller than a dime) into a board, and then tunnel along the length of the board.  I found this out one winter when I brought some white pine boards into the shop and planed them.  Started seeing tunnels pop up on the boards, and found quite a few groggy bees as well...that one tunnel had twenty or thirty bees in it. 

GF, how much b&b did you finish, and how much oil did it take?  I was wandering around Lowe's the other week and saw a 5 gallon bucket of Cabot's exterior oil for $127  :o  Someone at work said a fellow he knows simply goes to tractor supply and buys 5 gallon buckets of the cheapest tractor oil he can find and uses that. 

GF

Ohs,
     I had roughly 500 sq ft to treat, I used almost 4 gallons (about 1/2 pint left).   I put the rough sawn boards up and rolled the oil on it then put the battons up and used a brush.  This way as the boards shrink etc there should be no exposed unsealed surfaces ( I hope).  So far it seems to be working fine.  I put a generous coat on the boards when I rolled the oil on.  Hope this helps.

IndyIan

Hi Joel,
I put up White Cedar B&B that had air dried for about a month.  This cedar doesn't shrink very much radially or tangentially so it doesn't tend to warp very much.  If tulip poplar is similar then you might not need to dry it much if at all.  We used a water based latex stain, solid colour and it seems to be holding on quite well on the rough sawn finish and we went though alot of stain!  Rough sawn really soaks it up.  Also I would recommend using water based stain on wet wood as it says right on the can that the wood can be damp, I don't think any oil based product would say that.  I believe also that the wet wood allows the stain to penetrate farther into the boards as well.  We did one back coat and then 2 on the front and warpage has been very minimal even on the 10 and 12" wide boards in full sun.  Also nail the boards in the middle so that when they shrink they don't pull the nails out or split the board.  I learned this on my outhouse with White Pine B&B... 
If Tulip Poplar shrinks alot then I would let it dry down before putting it up, I'm sure you have lots of other projects to work on while it dries.
Ian

ely

those bees have taken to my 2x4's on my porch, they are no match for a badmitton racket though. sort of challenging with a board paddle. the most effective thing i have found is spray the boards with a malathion mixture and the next day you have dead bees everywhere.

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