At the Portland JLC Live last week, I had a chance to talk at some length with the Hardi representatives at the show.  Such an exchange sure beats e-mail.  And since I am too deaf to converse over the phone, it definitely beats trying that…

Some time back, I decided that I wanted a board-and-batten type siding on my welding shop to match what I hope to have on my house.  Since this will be in a area prone to fast moving brush fires, (and since the local Scenic Area commision has said “NO” to regular metal siding), I thought that using 4×8 sheets of cement board would be the ticket.  I find the grain pattern on Hardi to be a little too pronounced for my taste, so I sent an e-mail to the Certainteed cement board expert and got a response that I would have to back up the Certainteed with plywood or OSB to meet the 90mph wind rating.  Hardi said there was no problem with their 4×8 sheets on 24″ girts – so that should save me the price of 50 some sheets of plywood at the price of having to look at either completely smooth cement board or the exaggerated weathered cedar grain pattern. 

They also said I could use a special type of ring shank nails in my Senco SCN-65 coil nailer to fastenen the sheets to the girts of the steel building.  Should speed things up a little bit over using the screws.   Has anyone used the nails to attach cement board to steel framing? 

The Hardi demonstrator also talked me out of buying a cement board shear.  Showed me how slow it was in comparison to using a cement board blade in my Skillsaw (actually I will probably use an old Milwaukee I have instead), and using a jig saw to cut curves.  The jig saw doesn’t leave an edge as neatly finished as does the shears do, but I don’t have many of them to do.  They were cutting rabbets into the HardiTrim planks (1″ thick) and I was surprised how little dust they were kicking up.  They didn’t have a vacuum attached to the saw but ran a hose from the dust collection port into a Tupperware like container. 

I guess the HardiTrim hasn’t been in this country that long, the description is at:

http://www.jameshardie.com/builder/prodhome/harditrim.php