Have about 7 squares of old cedar shakes that have to come off, about 5-6 inch exposure. Finished one side of the barn today, but figured there had to be another way (other than having someone else do it : ) All roofs (3 sheds/barns) are 12/12 pitch, one is skip sheathed, the others are sheathed using 4/4 beadboard (built be a frugal New England Yankee about 100 years ago, or didn’t you guess.)
Using a variety of tools, but the shakes are resisting the change in location. Just about every single one of them is reduced to splinters before they are all cleared.
Was just hoping someone had developed another method between the time I last did this and now. (Pass the ibuprofen, please.)
Thanks.
I never met a tool I didn’t like!
Replies
Roofers use a tool... I know it's got a name, I even own one... a flat-point shovel with a large raised rib on the back, for leverage. That's as easy as it gets with well-attached cedar shingles or shakes. Sometimes it seems like it would be faster and easier to remove the skip too, or even the rafters!
Got one, both a shovel version and a hand tool that is actually more useful. And I hear you about the skip sheathing (which is 2x material on the barn). Inevitably they are reduced to toothpicks regardless what tool/method is used.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
Nick,
I feel your pain! Estwing pry bar works best for me. It has enough heft to pound in the nails that don't come up with the shingle.
One of the crew pulled up a shake with a 8" wasp nest on the bottom. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I bugbomb attics the day before we start now.
KK
Seen a few nests, but it's too chilly here for them to be active. My biggest worry is stepping in sheep poop, the barn is home for a coupla real wooly critters who don't like the sound of nail guns at all.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
No matter what tool - you are going to have a pile of slivers.
Oh - I get it - you want an easy way to make the slivers pile up?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
The list of easier jobs is a lot longer than the list of harder jobs
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The only trick I know ( and it's not much of a trick ) is use a flat bar or small tear off tool and tear off parallel to the ridge. Take about 3 courses at a time. Good luck.
I invented nucular.
I welded a 2" dia. by 6" long hunk of pipe to the back side of a 'tater fork, a heavy duty 4 tine digger thing. Works great.
The roof I tore off last had 6 to 8 + 10d commons in each oak shake, talk about a PITA.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Ow, that must have taken some time, sweat, and blood to pull them puppies, and oak to boot. Makes my cedar job seem quite tame by comparison. Didn't the fork tines bend?
I never met a tool I didn't like!
they bent a little, a digging fork is much stouter than a pitchfork.
Yep, it was a bitch. I am glad they didn't use ringshanks or I'd STILL be there..LOL
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
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I have found this helpful.
I've recently used a flat, long Eastwing pry bar for this purpose, working from the eave to the ridge. I try to take as many rows of shakes as I can before I move the scaffold. I search around with the pry bar under the shakes until I find the nails and then pop them up. shakes invariably break at least in two but nails do come out..and shakes slide down. Big PITA, also big PITK (pain in the knees).
Ii'm thinking of inventing a really long cable saw for this purpose that I could tuck under the eave shakes, from gable to gable. I could stand on the ridge with a big drill with a pulley that would spin and pull the cable saw underneath the shakes, sawing off the nails all the way up the roof. Shakes, felt everything would slide down into the tarp I've laid out on the ground. Voila..... Perhaps someday - my next big roof removal job.
Wylie
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