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hi guy’s.
for those who don’t know already, i’m from ireland and am building my own place soon. we don’t have the supplies that you lot have, so i need some information fro you.
i need the dimension’s of the normal bevelled siding, all the dimension’s, so i can have a company here do the same with some western red cedar i can source.
help appreciated
good luck
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Replies
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eddie, Alot depends on the exposure you are looking for. As a general rule and based on my experience: I like about 1-1/4" lap on my beveled siding. That allows my nailing to be about 1-5/16" above bottom of course edge. This is fine for 6" exposure or more. Milling butt thickness should be a minimum of 1/2". I have used 1/2", 5/8" and 3/4" with 6-8" exposure siding. The less exposure and thicker butt gives a more pronounced bevel. On exposures under 6", I would reccommend 3/4" lap thus having a 7/8" nail line. With less exposure, meaning less overall board width you have less seasonal movement in your siding across the width. You also can use 1/2" standard as a butt thickness.
Some common dimensions of siding.
4" rabbited bevel: 4" exposure with a 1/2" rabbit at the butt which seats on the top edge of the previous course. This allows the siding to sit tight against the sheathing, but also eliminates any air space behind your siding. Actual dimensions are 4-7/16" wide with a 1/2" butt. I find the top edge of the beveled siding is almost universally a strong 1/8--3/16".
5"exposure: usually 1/2" butt x 5-3/4" width. I only used this once and it may have been a custom milling , but it was called out as 1/2 x 6 beveled siding
6"exposure: either 1/2" or 5/8" butt x 7-1/4" width called out as 1/2 x 8 beveled siding
8" exposure: usually 5/8" butt but I have seen 3/4" x 9-1/4" width. called out as 5/8 x 10 beveled siding
As your siding becomes wider, you increase you chances of splitting, cupping and shrinkage due to weather exposure. I have sided one old farmhouse that had siding exposure about 3" and have seen some houses using 1" boards as beveled siding that were 10" exposure. They had quite the pronounced bevel.
Hope this is helpful. Good luck with your project.
walk good
david
*eddie.. New England is traditioally 4" exposure with a 1/2 x 6 clapboard.. which is actually 5 1/2 x 1/2... taperedto about 3/16 at the top...one word of caution.... the best stuff is CAVG... Clear-All-Heart-Vertical-Grain..... and nowadays we can get it factory primed and even finished... all the nailing has to go as close to the tip of teh clapboard below as possible..so, if you have 1.5" of lap...the nail should go 1.75" above the butt.. this ensures that each course has only ONE row of nails..if it has two,, the expansion & contraction will split the clap...we use a skinny waffle head stainless gun nail.. but we used to use bronze ring-shank boat nails... you only need one every stud.. so nails are not a big expense item...the exposure should be your first concern, as it is a major decision in the appearance of the house.. me... if i had my druthers... nothing but fibercement siding..i like Certainteed at a 4 " exposure..after 20 years of CAVG cedar.. i like the appearance and the longevity of the fibercement.. the cavg will last forever too, but you have to keep the paint or stain on it...and by stain i mean solid body stain which might as well be paint...
*The CAVG to be backprimed, too, Mike?
*everything backprimed & endprimed for all new cuts//also, we don't use butt joints for wood clapbds. we use a scarf joint...45 deg....which runs out at a little bias so you have to orient each cut the same so teh bias willrun out the same...the result looks very similar to the colonial claps which were all trimmed with a hatchet on a scarf joint
*hi guy's,thanks for the quick post's.i'm going for a 4" exposure with the siding.i now have the dimension's that i need to get the clap's milled, thanks.but would like to here more about this 'scarf' joint for the ends of the clap's, mike.good luck
*eddie, just set your saw to 45... and put the clap against the fence..bewcause of teh bevel of the material, the cut will angle off at the same bevel...try to make your joints fall over studs.. one nail thru both pieces... and observe the hollywood side so your critics don't look into the joint, but over it..we use scarf joints instead of butt joints for all our trim & horizontal siding... except fibercement
*Mike,Don't you use an inverted scrap piece of siding to level the outward face under the saw, and thus ensure that the scarf joint appears to run vertical after nailing? Too time-consuming? It's worked well for me.Tom
*I use butt joints on siding because they expose less endgrain to the elements. Plus, with butt joints you can cut things just a little long and spring them in. I can see how a scarf joint seems like better craftsmanship, but I don't think they're as good functionally. Does that make me a "butthead"? We put felt paper splines behind any butt joints to deflect any water that might get in there, too. You can really change the appearance of a building with things like size of corner boards (or none), heavy window trim, overhang brackets and other exterior details, too. Before you decide on what exposure bevel, experiment with those details, Eddie. They can make a huge difference in the overall style of the building.
*For corner boards - what are the pros and cons of the way the corner boards are cut?kinda hard to describe, but mine were all cut with a 45 on the outside edge, to form the 90 degree corner joint - a few I replaced I put back the two board assembly as just lapped on each other as I thought it hard tohave the 45 stay "closed" and look neat , if that makes any sense.which way is best - sure wish there were web sites that showed this detail
*No Jim, That's not what makes you a butthead.I mean, that doesn't make yo...Aw, never mind.b : )
*You can cut your bevel cut with either a slide or large enough miter saw by placing the exposed side down or into the fence. This will give you a plumb cut on your exterior face.I like 15deg for my joints. Less exposure of cross-grain and enough to keep the joint closed. Howevrer I agree with Jim, a tight, snap-in-tight butt joint is as good as they get. Nailing butts or scarf joints, I like to keep my nails back about 1" from the joint. Therefore two nails slightly angled to catch the stud. Less likely to split the end boards. As an aside, another excellent reason to sheath with boards rather than plywood. Better and more universal nailing.Any time you indroduce a joint there is an increase chance of moisture entering. Corner boards, casing on doors and windows are the usually problem areas. Corner boards can be deleted and mitered or lapped corners run instead. The old farmhouses I remember from New England had the window casing flush with the sheathing. The siding rain over the casing to a stop on the casing. Some stops were only 1 x 2 but others were 1 x 4.As a question for Mike and Jim as I know both of you are familiar with the felt paper at joints or as building paper; it was always assumed that the felt acted as a moisture barrier to help mitigate the chance of rot at the joints. Yet felt paper, even 30# will absorb water and hold it for quite awhile until it evaporates off or is transfered to the siding or sheathing. Was/ is using felt in that capacity a good idea?You and I, Mike have discussed the merits of building paper choices, ie, building felt, red rosin, housewraps. I am not convinced that a better choice for joints is to stick with rosin paper and have the better capillary action and dispersal equating to better and quicker evaporation. Felt paper seems to retain water much longer than rosin paper.just some thoughtswalk gooddavid
*crazy leg's, i think your right.i've always been a 'butt' man.thanks for the post's guy's.good luck
*Another butt man here. We use strips of dark coil stock instead of felt. seems more durable.
*Eddie,Why mill the boards? I'd be tempted to leave them full dimension, much more wood there, why make them skinny? Waste of time and wood. Unless if your mill can accomplish the bevel in such a way that you'd get two boards from each one, ripped on a severe angle down the middle. But that probably requires some specialized equipment, at least to a degree.I don't bevel corner boards. Maybe I would in a stain grade situation but generally with paint or opaque stain, I rip down corner boards on one side so when they butt up, it looks like the same dimension from both views. They butt perfectly, with some persuasion, and ring shanked siding nails to keep them there.David, is rosin paper more waterproof than tarpaper? I can't see it. scarf joints look good and I think last longer tightly.
*Mad Dog, neither one is waterproof . The capillary action in rosin paper is greater than felt paper, meaning it disperses the water over a greater area to allow quicker evaporation.The question I have and my thought process is such: if moisture gets into the cavity between the sheathing and siding, how is it best addressed? It doesn't matter so much if it is internal moisture ( unlikely due to the use of plywood as sheathing ) or external moisture, it still needs to be removed via external evaporation.Been looking at this issue for quite awhile and several points of consideration I have arrived at. 1. with an non-absorbant building paper, ie, housewrap, moisture will be absorbed by the next likely medium, either sheathing or siding. The wood has a higher saturation level per area thus more water absorbed per area. Consequently more time is needed to dry out.Now if you consider using a building paper like felt or rosin paper, the paper has a higher absorbtion capacity than wood. It will absorb the moisture more readily than the wood. It also has a lower satuation capacity per area but also greater capillary action than wood, there by dispersing the same volumne of water over a greater area thereby decreasing the evaporation or drying time.Comparing felt with rosin paper, felt has a greater satuation capacity and less capillary action than rosin. Returning to my original question, is the use of felt in areas of greater moisture penetration ie at butt joints and edges detrimental in as such it concentrates more moisture there? Perhaps this should be discussed in the Tavern with some fine Shiraz?walk gooddavidmy apoligys eddie if I have hyjacked your thread. it is a fine point of siding, but has little to do with beveled siding dimensions
*tom.. i want the scarf joint to run out at an anglenext time i'm in Newport i'll take some pics of the original and the restoration claps to illustrate what i mean...we don't use a spline at our joints.. and we end prime our scarf before it goes together.. so we aren't sucking water into the end grain..so the minimal issue of butt vs. scarf doesn't really involve end graing with us..anywhooo .. to each their own...BTW... over the years.. our claps have been CAVG red cedar, atlantic white cedar, & luan.. ( some of the 1890 buildings around here had cypress.. now there is a hell of a clapboard...) the atlantic white cedar was very rustic.. and the epa ran the loggers out of the swamps they were cutting.. so we can't get that anymore..the luan sucked.. some of the boards looked like bananas after you nailed them up..the only matl we use now is CAVG or cement..
*hmmm, that's an interesting question, David. Scratchin' my stubble and thinkin' that one over a while...I was thinking more along the lines of the 1/16" gap between ends of boards I often see in winter, just the need to deflect that water out, instead of behind the course below...but you got my wheels turning now...And Luka - I HEARD THAT!
*Mike, You must be working on some high-end "joints" down there in Rhode Island. I have been in the trade since the middle 70's and have worked on several million dollar shacks and have never seen a 45 degree joint on clapboard siding. Will the joint stand up to the weather as good as a butt joint? I don't like the idea of that thin pointy edge of the miter cut. I used 45 degree miter joints on my own house on all the exteior trim. I don't think I would do it again. It's a lot of extra work that I can't justify the labor for. Is the "scarf" joint used for looks? The old-timers around here used to keep pieces of 15lb. felt paper in their pockets, cut to size for a joint in the siding. It would go over the course below to shed the water. Of course we have Tyvek and Typar now a days.Don't take my comments the wrong way. I'm curious, not criticizing.
*ricky... just started doing scarf about 15 years ago.. now it's 2d nature to me and my guys...and we end prime everything.. so no wicking..also.. any miscut in a butt joint looks like crap...any twist.. any bow.. a scarf joint just makes it easier to look good..and high end ?whooeee.. when i think of teh crap that used to be acceptable practise in the 60's, 70's & even the early 80's.. now everyone does high end or goes home.. i guess the bar has been raised in a lot of places... you know.. you go work onsomeof the old victorians.. and you start scratching your head about how they could devote that kind of workmanship to the homes... i guess it must have been a sustained period of economic well being.. and the craftsmanship reflected it...the craftsman homes of the 20's & 30's had the same .. but the scale was lower.. smaller..then there was the long period of the depression, and the war.. and teh post war...believe me when i tell you... i think we're in a golden age of construction in the US.. not in the tracts.. but certainly in the remodeling end of the business...