Milling horz.siding

[mike_cain]

Going to have some hemlock milled into siding this spring by a sawyer with years of experience on a band mill but he has never cut siding. A person is lending us the attachment for the bevel cut. Need any advice anyone can offer, thing to watch out for,  tips on drying the siding etc. I think we are going to cut the siding at 8 inches with 3/4 on the exposed side and 1/4 inch on the narrow side. Plan to install the siding with 6 inches of exposer and a 2 inch lap. I have two log that are 16 ft and the rest are shorter then that. Is 16 too long to attempt?  Any suggustions appreciated.   mike      -     upstate NY

[redpowerd]

mike, how "upstate" are you? get on the map!
come up up state and see my sidin, its adk style
welcome!

[mike_cain]

I am in the Elmira/ Horseheads area. Isn't Ard. style the kind with the exposed edge left unmilled? The area where this is siding will be used is not suitable for that type of siding. I plan to stain this siding with a light gray or blue color.  

[Minnesota_boy]

I made some siding with my mill.  I made it 6" wide with a 2" lap, which left only 4" exposed.  Don't do it that size!  Takes forever to put it up!  :D  It looks nice on the building though.  I was using salvage logs and had quite a few crack or split so they weren't useable.  Not the fault of the sawing, just the quality of the logs, but be prepared for this eventuality and saw a few extras.  I used Balsam Fir and had plenty of "shake" to deal with.  If you have good quality of logs you may not have much problem with splits.

[Tobacco Plug]

I have a Woodmizer lap siding attachment and cut 12, 14, and 16 foot material for my house.  Back last summer I cut some for a friend that was 14 feet long.  I have had no problems sawing these lengths.  One thing, though, with my attachment, the taller the cant you saw, the greater the change in angle of the bevel, however it has not been enough to make a real difference in using the material.

[UNCLEBUCK]

Can anyone explain this type of siding , its beveled allright but also I have never seen this .                                                                                  
 I been saving this picture for this kind of question and thought it would be neat to show it . Maybe give someone a idea or two .

[beenthere]

That siding was quite popular in England (UK), at least when I was there 25 years ago.

[EZ]

There are a few houses in my area that are sided like that, pretty cool.
EZ

[Fla._Deadheader]

  That siding musta been made on a homemade mill with a severe case of " blade wander" : : ;D ;D

[Tobacco Plug]

We've got a few houses and barns sided with similar material around here, but I think that most of them are not beveled, they are just boards cut and not edged.  I cut some for a man on the first sawing job I did for "the public" and he said he was going to side a barn with it.  Seems like you would have to strip off the bark on the edge, which sounds like a lot of extra work to me but it that is the look you want, I guess you do it.  Kinda like that four inch exposure Minnesota Boy talked about.

[woodmills1]

It is called live edge siding.  I made some for a customer, but it wasn't wavy enough for him so I used it on my back addition.  There is a mill in maine that specializes in it.
http://www.mainetimberworks.com/clapboard_siding.html

[pappy]

UNCLEBUCK,

That's just the kind of siding I plan on using on the shop, I just call it "live edge siding" gonna make it with some white cedar 6X6 w/ one live edge cants and my "oops cuts" planning on 1/2" thick--just plane the back side and use rough side out and finish with Perma chink.    looks great 8)


http://www.perma-chink.com/

[redpowerd]

around here its adirondack siding(adk)
thats what grump my grandfather bush calls it!
(no relation)
i left the bark on and not plannin on stainin till it falls off

[Norm]

Can you use boards right off the mill with one live edge or do they have to have a bevel on them for an overlap?

[redpowerd]

i didnt, but well advised. i used a starter strip, then matched them all level, very time consuming. the bevel would make it quicker, but i dont think you could match the ends as well.
ill try for some pics this week.
pics ::)talk about time consumin

[woodmills1]

Mine are just over 1/2 constant thickness with a starter.  I used two layers of low quality shakes as a starter.

[Swede]

  Have never seen live edge siding  before. Very nice!

Now I know where I´ll make one!  My neighbor, the glassfactory have two small sheds who need a new siding. I´ll do one live edge and the other 12" wide vertical  And.......and a STAMP!!  8) "Every board is visual reviewed, quality approved and sawn by Amerika-Sågen, 200M in South" A big stamp! 8)
There is hundreds of tourists there every day in the summer. Guess if I´ll make business!

Is apen and no painting a good idea? The color will be the right in a couple of years.

Swede.

[UNCLEBUCK]

termite thats a great idea , I hope you show pictures of that project when you start on it .  woodmill 1 thanks for showing picture of that style "live edge siding" , I just learned something new about siding , the stuff looks great , that man must have been a fuss budget to not want that . checked out that site too , thanks !  I really like this siding q & a , tons of ideas !

[Captain]

I cut a fair amount of horizontal siding on the Peterson for building small outbuildings and sheds mostly.  They have a different set of stops that can be installed and adjusted to preference to take the blade off vertical to give you true tapered weatherboard or "clapboard" as we call it in New England.

It is difficult to stack and store without degrade with REALLY FRESH logs.  I like to cut it out of the heart of older, dryer logs if it is to be stored.  

The shed pictured below I built for a customer last year in September.  I cut the siding the morning that I put it up.  I am very careful not to nail through the top of the piece, allowing for shrinkage in this way.  As you can see, some still stained, but the customer LOVES the look.  I have been planning special stacking sticks to accomodate the tapered siding.  I also just purchased an 8" jointer and was wondering if there was a safe way to finish one side on it, or if I should build some kind of a table/sled to accomodate for the taper and run it through the surface planer.  Any Ideas?



This shed was 8x12, which gets it under the size required for a building permit in our area.  I have been building a few in the slow times as a way to get rid of some extra, lower grade pine.  Anyone else doing the value added thing with small scale building?

Captain

[EZ]

My son-in-laws were building the small scale buildings until last fall. They built a double wide, two story for a guy, 14 wide x 16 long x 14 high at the side walls. They built it like a double wide trailer. When hauling it, they got pulled over by the man, got fined $1200 and a big butt chewing from the judge. I payed the fine but I told them they can keep the butt chewing. That scared them pretty good so now their not building anymore.
EZ

[beav]

hi,mike. i've cut a few houses worth of claps with my wood-mizer mill & "shingle and lapsiding" attachment. the results were excellent. i made 6" claps with abt 5" to the weather. they were cut from the heartwood of large(abt 30") white pine logs.both sides were stained prior to installation. after six years the claps on the south show low to no signs of cupping.
  of course the ones on the south side were the highest grade- from clear at the bottom to vertical grain clear at the top courses. i hate working up high and plan to do it once-best stuff goes up high. white pine heartwood from large trees is amazingly decay-resistant. a large log yields jillions of claps
   obviously if sawing 8" claps,you start with 8" cants. configure the attachment for max. throw in the clap mode, clamp the cant in, and make a trueing skim cut. this is where it will suck for a little while if you're paying him by the hour. mark this point on your scale with a pencil(make sure it has an eraser).throw the lever and lower the blade one clap.mark.cut.throw.mark.cut.etc.be careful,once you have marks,you have to move them all to fix one.and it does change as it goes down.however once you make it through the first one,its CAKE there will be a 2" peice left over  at the bottom you can spot-glue into a stack to get all claps possible
   to dry them,take a pair of 2x2's (mde from waney slab-junk) and lay them both out every 2" cut them both 1 inch deep with a chainsaw on your layout.set them bout six feet apart and plug the narrow edge of the clap into your grooves.if the claps go north-south the sun wont cup them as it rapidly dries them.with blocks you can stack these rigs
   hope this is clear.i have no experience with hemlock claps,but i built my house out of it,and it rules around here for most everything else

[mike_cain]

Thanks for the hands on information. I have printed it for future use.  mike cain