I’m in the process of re-siding my house and will be using cedar shingles on one gable end-only about 2 squares. The shingles the lumber yard sent are #2 and look a little ragged with uneven sides and furry bottoms. I’ve seen the terms “re-squared and rebutted”. Does that mean they are straight on the sides and flat on the bottom. If so, I think I’ll send the #2’s back and get the r and r’s. What do all you sidewall shinglers use?
Dozerjohn
From building boxes and fitting face frames to installing doors and drawers, these techniques could be used for lots of cabinet projects.
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Dig into cutting-edge approaches and decades of proven solutions with total access to our experts and tradespeople.
Start Free Trial NowGet instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field.
Start Free Trial Now
Replies
You didnt say what kind of shingles. Barn splits, perfections, striated???
It's not who's right, it's who's left ~ http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Andy,
I'm not sure exactly what type of shingles I'll be using. All I want is something cedar with straight sides and bottoms. They don't need to be the highest grade, but I also don't want something that will give me problems. The rest of the house will be sided with 6 inch Select Knotty cedar finished with a product from Behr called Super Liquid Rawhide. It is very natural in color. So, I want the cedar shingles (not shakes-once upon a time I was a roofer, so I know the difference) to complement the siding.
Thanks,
Dozerjohn
I'd recommend "white cedar". Not red as red turns black eventually. the white cedar is like what you see in cape cod, Block Island, Marthas Vinyard etc etc. Turns grey. No need to ever treat it like red cedar. See my website below. I used the white cedar. I had it shipped from Conn. to here on Long Island NY. Was actually cheaper then red cedar and no one here carries it.....hmmmmm..
PS.....Look on line or in the library at the Architect Robert A.M Stern (one of my mentors)..see his siding! All white cedar.
Be well
Namaste
AndyIt's not who's right, it's who's left ~ http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
w.c. turns just as dark as reds... it all depends on the exposure.. if you want the cape cod look you have to live on Cape Cod ... or...
you have to use a stain & bleaching oil.. other wise the weathering of W.C. is just hit and miss.. mostly miss..
if you are using a rustic siding on the rest of the house.. then you don't need an R&R for the shingles..... but if you want to use the same finish on the shingles.. then stick with R.C.
your other siding is R.C. not W.C....
but hey, whadda i no ?
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Mike
TAke a look at my website. I used the WC. Its been five years now and half the house is dead in the sun and its a beautiful grey as it has been the past three....no difference at all. My neighbors houses that just recently used RC (about three years ago are already turning dark.....spose mine was a hit rather then the miss
Be well
Namaste
AndyIt's not who's right, it's who's left ~ http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
The red will turn black quicker because of stuff in the wood but the white will still turn. It harbours mildew so how hospitable it is to that will determine how quickly. Full sun exposure will retard mildew growthbut accelerate the UV damage which also turns it black after going grey. Five years is a short measure. Like Mike said, Oils will replicate the Cape Cod look but it comes from salt weathering and sun and wind whipped sand.
Excellence is its own reward!
There are several white cedar homes in my town of Cold Spring Harbor L I....not tons but some...Most are well over 15 years old and all seem to stay a pleasant grey naturallyIt's not who's right, it's who's left ~ http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
These are #2 Western Red Cedar. They're about 10 years old. Nothing on them but the occasional gutter overflow.
I did plane the edges as I nailed them up, but it usually only takes a couple licks with a sharp block plane to get each one paralell to the one beside it. Notice how flat the grain is, though? And how it runs diagonally across many of the shingles? You guys that are in the know, isn't that part of the reason they are graded #2, instead of higher, too?
Anyway, as to what would go best with TK Cedar siding, that's mostly a matter of taste. These are on the South and West walls of this house, and as you can see they are very stable dimensionally. Brinkmann for president in '04
whatever happened to the tin man.....wahhhhh.....I wanna bang aluminum again....wuz so much fun cuttin that stuff.....NOT...lolIt's not who's right, it's who's left ~ http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
#1's (blue tag) are VG and clear. I believe some small tight knot may be allowed in upper half of shingle.
Original post mentioned the rough or fuzzy bottoms. When a shingle mill, or shake mill cuts shingles or shakes out of a cedar "bolt," the chainsawed end of the bolt becomes the bottom of the shingle, thus the rough edge. The sides of a given shingle may or may not be perpendicular to the bottom, but as you say, a couple swipes with a block plane is usually sufficient.
If I'm doing decorative shingles, I usually make my own and that requires truing up the shingles plumb and square to the required width. For me, that's best done on a table saw.
Yeah, Notchman, now you're talkin'. "Red Labels" = #2, "Blue Labels" = #1, that's the terminology I'm familiar with. So what are these "Select"? Mike Smith keeps mentioning? Tighter grain? Mike?
You out here in the Great Northwest, Notchman?
Brinkmann for president in '04
Edited 7/24/2002 9:33:14 PM ET by jim blodgett
South Oregon Coast area, where there's still some buckskin oldgrowth WRC when you can find it.
I don't know about Select...but I'm not a shingle grading expert. There are a couple of shingle mills near here and I usually buy direct from them after looking at the quality of the stock they're running at a given time. I usually manage to get some really tight grain, worm-free #1's.
It's a regional thing, I think. When I was in Colorado and Texas, I ordered #1 blue labels. When I moved to Maine, I discovered that the labels are all the same colour! Seconds, Clears, Extra Clears, and Selects - and what you get under each of those Eastern grading denominations can vary according to the mill they came from.
Excellence is its own reward!
You mentioned local mills back there, Piffin. Do you guys have Red Cedar growing there? Is it the same as our W.R.C.? Young growth kinda yellow, heartwood deep red-almost to black? Rot resistant if you can get that deep red stuff?
Hey Notchman - How far down the coast? Down around Brookings? Bandon? Coos Bay? One of our pipe dreams is to retire down there around Brookings somewhere. Didn't even know about it until JonC took us down there a few years ago. Sweet.
"Notchman" for springboard notches?
Brinkmann for president in '04
Our Cedar is Eastern White Cedar. To get red we order Perfections and wait for somebody to go kill a tree. (moment of silence please)
Now Cedar is a wood I will take my hat off and bow for!
Excellence is its own reward!
I'm with you man. There's nothing more beautiful than that old cedar. I;m kinda glad it isn't very strong, that kept demand from gobbling up what little there is left. We have some nice Cedar trees on our place - they'll be ready to harvest in a couple hundred more years.
There's a hardwood dealer out here, Crosscut Hardwoods. In their Seattle store they had a slab of V.G. Cedar about 4 feet wide, by maybe 6 feet long, by, like 4 inches thick. Tree went down in a storm a few years ago, I think. Anyway, this tree predates Columbus coming here. I was awestruck when I first saw it. Should have bought it, but didn't. What a table that would make, huh?
Brinkmann for president in '04
Coos Bay area. I'm inland about 6 miles in a neat little valley where the Roosevelt Elk and the Black bears play.
Friend of mine hung the Notchman thing on me once when I screwed up a long wedged scarf on a timberframe top plate and, in a fit of panic and determination, got lucky and cut a nearly perfect new one in less than an hour.
My Dad, much to my disappointment, gave his well-worn old springboard to a friend.
Edited 7/25/2002 1:12:51 AM ET by Notchman
Andy -I am looking to redo a house that has 50 plus year old shingles how do I tell if they are red or white cedar? when I break them apart they look redish is that the clue? They have never been treated
Also part of the house is very high never plan to go back and stain so I want to use natural all over, house is 1000 feet from the water will red cedar turn somewhat gray? or just go back?
thanks
Don
sounds like red to me.
I don't believe any cedar stays the way you want it to. Need to eventually be treated.
Dependant on your location. Under trees it seems to water stain real bad no matter what specie.
The white cedar I used is still grey to this day but its only been a bit over five years so who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Wood is real and has a mind of its own. All the red cedar I see around here thats ignored turns a serious black color......but thats around here. In Jimmy's (Blodgett) neck of the woods out west my guess is that the weather is much more stable then it is here in NY......geezzz we worked in a blizzard for a cpl of hours yesterday...who'd a thought I'd be shoveling snow off the second floor Advantech yesterday????
BE well
andyMy life is my practice!
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Man, was that sucker a white-out or what??
I dunno how bad you got it(probably worse out on longisland(typed as pronounced)). Up here we didn't get any accumulation that didn't melt in 2hrs, but when it came down, IT CAME DOWN.
Mike
"blizzard" for about two hours..seemed so weird workin out in that!!!My life is my practice!
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
measure them... wc is usually 16"... RC is usually 18"..
also, WC is very curly.. RC lies flatter...
look at the backs...red & straight grain is RC
whiteish & wild grain....WC
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I've been told the same thing about W.C. shingles, i.e. they weather to a silvery grey without treating them. A distributor for Maibec in Conn. told me that you should dip them in bleaching oil so that they weather evenly on all four sides of the house. But you never need to retreat them for 40 years.
Question for the board: This same guy also told me that the ONLY way to install cedar shingle siding is over 1 x 3 furring strips to allow them to breathe. The problem is that I've already trimmed out all my windows, doors and corner boards with mahogany 5/4. Do you guys install over furring, or do you go directly over plywood and felt? Anybody have any long term experience with the results? TIA.
maybe in the wet coast of washington.. but for normal areas of the country shingles install on felt right on the sheathing...
as to 40 years....BS...
25 for an uncoated WC.. after that there will be little left of the shingles in the exposed areas of the house..the wood fibers will erode away and the shingle gets thinner and thinner until there is nothing left...
any wood shingle wood clapboard will last forever if it is coated and maintained.. but unless there is a weathering surface.. like a solid stain or paint.. the shingle/ clapboard will degrade thru erosion of the wood fibers...
and uniform weathering.. no way.. not unless you use a bleaching oil.. or get very lucky.... or live on Cape Cod AND your house has no overhangs...
in the '60's and '70's the Cape Cod lok was very popular in New England.. the only way to guarantee the look was to mix Cabots Bleaching Oil 50/50 with Cabots Silver Grey
but hey, whadda i no ?Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
You've been the victim of a lot of BS
Bleaching oil is to accelerate the appearance from natural blonde to silver grey but does very little to stop further weathering and staining. But of course the guy telling you this would've made more money selling the predipped than the regular natural.
They certainly might last longer and warp less over furring but it is by no means an absolute. Rain screen walls are just starting to become more common.Excellence is its own reward!
they all get used at different times...
the most formal look is the R.C. r&r...use 'em just as they come out of the box.. don't try to plane & fit..
another fairly formal look is Maibec W.C. factory dipped... but even a factory dipped r&R in W.C. will still not be as stable as a R.C.
the #2's are not something we would use.. but we have used #1 Perfections in R.C... just a different look..
the Cape Cod look is with a W.C. usually "Extras".. some will try to save money with "Clears".. but the grain is wilder and the shingle is not as stable as the Extras..after a couple rainstorms, the south gable end will look like you shingled with potatoe chips...
a Royal.. or a "thick -butt" is a good roofing shingle..
these are all shingles.. some people mistakenly call shingles "shakes" but a shake is split.. and a shingle is sawn.. unless you get a shake that has a sawn back... ( just to confuse the issue)..
here's a pic. of a work in progress... we're using factory primed R.C. / R&R's to match the existing R.C probably dating from say 1950 or so...
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Hey Mike, I've read quite a few of your posts and really appreciate the amount of information you provide. Would you tell me what "R.C. r&r" stands for? Also, in the thread about cedar shingles, you mentioned that "factory dipped r&r in w.c. will not be as stable as r.c." Hope your still reading this thread.
"R.C. r&r" = Red Cedar, resquared and rebutted
r&r in w.c. = resquared and rebutted in white cedar
While it is true that white is not as stable as red, when predipped and installed on siding instead of roof, it will not see enough water to notice the difference, IMO
Excellence is its own reward!
i've used the maibec factory dipped white cedar R&R..they come close to an RC factory dipped.. but they will move on a south gable...whcih is what i mean by stable..
if you want a formal shingle...an RC R&R is going to be noticeably different than anything else...
and a WC will expand, contract, cup and bend ..no matter what maibec does to them they just can't get the same straight vertical grain you can get with a RC..
the "select " designation is something i remember..but i also remember "thick -butt" and "Royals"...they are all bundled shingles as opposed to boxed.. i think the Royals were a 24" shingle.. the thick butts are what we usually spec for roofing.. and the #1 or "select" is what we spec for sidewall if we want a little more rustic look than R&R but still want a RC as opposed to a WC..
when i get confused i usually call Liberty Cedar to set me straight again..Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
You're right, they won't swell bad but they do have that sworly grain tha't more prone to cupping.
Excellence is its own reward!