Anyone make their own siding vs buying?

[CalG]

I am ultra frugal, and while I admit I have not tried this yet, I have wondered what would happen if I used clapboards for roofing material.

I would probably coat them with roofing tar before applying them to the roof, but I cannot see why this would not make for a long lasting roofing material. Overlapped, I cannot see why this would not shed water for a long time. If a person wanted to get really fancy, they could even sprinkle on some sharp sand to get the grit shingles have.

In a wildfire situation it might not be good, but I am not sure it is any worse than real asphalt shingles?

I only mention this because you said you had roofing to do as well. Maybe with this idea you could get a little more out of that hemlock/Harbor Freight Sawmill? But yeah, this is really thinking outside the box I know.

Clap boards on the roof? They would look like a mess of spaghetti in less than a month. Rain sun drying wind and then rain again.
Tripple coverage would only be a dream. Shakes and wood shingles on the other hand......

My house is board and batten hemlock sided. Cheap construction in anyone's book. We have been in 30 years, and bought the place second hand. I can't see much change in the exterior walls.

Remember "Heart up, Heart out".

 

[CalG]

I have my own sawmill, but I used Eastern Hemlock to make clapboards for my old house last fall. All I did was cut the logs into cants (beams) 10" wide, then whatever I could get tall, and still get into clean wood with no bark. Then I would put wooden shingles under my cant to rock the cant by 3/8 of an inch. I would set the blade by 3/8 lower making for a tapered 10 inch wide clapboard. Then on the next cut, I would pull the shingle shims out, and bring the cant back to level and make the next cut 3/8 of an inch lower. Doing that every other cut, on most logs, I was getting 25 clapboards per log, so at 10 feet long, I was getting quite a bit of product for not a lot of work.

I put mine on 6 inches to the weather, so 6 inches showing, and 4 inches of overlap, but only because 6 inches comes out even (2 rows per vertical foot). It was also an incredible amount of coverage with just a few clapboards, and a nail gun made it fast. You could go 4 inches to the weather with 8 inch wide clapboards, or whatever combination you want, say 6 inch wide clapboards, with 4 inches to the weather and 2 inches of overlap...really whatever you want.

I had some shake in my hemlock so some cracked on me, but overall for this house, it works well enough. Besides, where else could I clapboard my house for $10 in gasoline and $30 for a box of nails?

For a barn? I would not think twice about doing it again. Heck I would do it again for a house.

Good on ya! Brokentrack.

Running four sided square stock through a dedicated band saw set up as a secondary operation would be an option for consideration.
I witnessed a set up over in Bennington that was no more than an old floor band saw and a power feed that split boards into two pieces of clapboard siding faster than I can run. Those pieces flew off that saw table. Likely attributed to a good blade choice, 'cause the saw must have been from the late 1800s. Setting up a band saw mill to cut the diagonal of a 1X8 would not be difficult. Add a Grizzly Power feeder and you would need to hire help to keep up ;-)

 

[BrokenTrack]

Good on ya! Brokentrack.

Running four sided square stock through a dedicated band saw set up as a secondary operation would be an option for consideration.
I witnessed a set up over in Bennington that was no more than an old floor band saw and a power feed that split boards into two pieces of clapboard siding faster than I can run. Those pieces flew off that saw table. Likely attributed to a good blade choice, 'cause the saw must have been from the late 1800s. Setting up a band saw mill to cut the diagonal of a 1X8 would not be difficult. Add a Grizzly Power feeder and you would need to hire help to keep up ;-)

I tend to be a minimalist by nature, so the shingle-shim worked pretty well for me. Why make four sided lumber just to split them again with all the moving and sawing when you can just cut a cant, say 10 inches wide and 18 inches high, then start sawing them directly into siding? You reduce your sawing time, reduce your sawdust, and only have to lift siding that weights 1/3 less in weight.

I was surprised how fast I was turning out siding. After you get into a rhythm it really goes fast. And at 25 pieces to a log on average, that is 1.25 square per log. In other words, two logs would side a wall 10 feet high and 25 feet long. I used 10 foot long logs. This kept the size of my logs up, but also gave me some pretty good coverage on the walls.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Now you might be on to something here, that mill only does 20 in logs though, most the logs down there are 30 in plus, some 5ft in diameter. Seems like it would take a forest to side that building though. If my mom didn稚 select cut the property, I could have done it with oak. But hemlock would be much lighter on the buildings. I will have to give this some serious thought.

Saw Mill with 31cc Gas Engine

But trees grow on a taper. Even the giant Redwoods out west have small logs when you get near the top of the tree. Ask anyone with their own sawmill and they will tell you; you sell the best butt logs for cash, and saw your junk logs into your own lumber.

A twenty inch log is still a pretty big log, and will net you 30 or more pieces of clapboard. And on an all-manual sawmill, you would not want to wrestle with anything much bigger anyway. I have a log loader and a Norwood, and putting on a 26 inch log was all that I wanted.

 

[BrokenTrack]

Clap boards on the roof? They would look like a mess of spaghetti in less than a month. Rain sun drying wind and then rain again.
Tripple coverage would only be a dream. Shakes and wood shingles on the other hand......

My house is board and batten hemlock sided. Cheap construction in anyone's book. We have been in 30 years, and bought the place second hand. I can't see much change in the exterior walls.

Remember "Heart up, Heart out".

I like board and batten, especially on a barn. I built a 30 x 48 barn a few years ago, all out of hemlock, and used board and batten siding. With new steel and a concrete floor, the place cost me $4450. That was a pretty cheap barn considering its size.

 

[TnAndy]

The shingle-shim method I used could be used on any bandsaw mill.

In thinking some more, and while it depends on what you have for a siding quote of course; there is rave reviews for a Harbor Freight Bandsaw Mill. That has a price of $2000, so you MIGHT (again depends on your siding quote) buy your sawmill, side your barn, and have a sawmill at the end of it, cheaper then you could have paid someone to side your barn.

Or you could buy the sawmill, side your barn, the sell the sawmill after you are done, and end up with a sided barn for $800.

I happened to have done this a few months ago, so what I say, I say with confidence.

I do the same thing with my Woodmizer mill. Have to laugh at the YouTube guys inventing all these complicated jigs for sawing lap siding when a couple of shims does the trick a whole lot easier (most of them have to unload the cant, put the jig on, then re-load the cant to even start to saw....)

I use white pine and yellow poplar for my siding because that is what I have. My shims are a couple small squares of 5/8" plywood. I saw my cants down to an 8" width, by however tall I can get out of the log....then cut the taper from about 3/8" to 7/8" thick. I dry it on sticks for few months, then use as needed. Every barn and building on my place is sided with it.

IF you have a decent amount of timber on a place, or can get logs, a small bandmill is one of the handiest tools you'll ever own.

Shop, 23 years ago. Still holding up well. One coat of oil based stain.

Chicken house

Firewood sheds

2 hog house....lid hinged for cleanout

Hog feed house....holds 4 55gal drums, feed dumped into PVC trough

Gas station

 

[coobie]

I do the same thing with my Woodmizer mill. Have to laugh at the YouTube guys inventing all these complicated jigs for sawing lap siding when a couple of shims does the trick a whole lot easier (most of them have to unload the cant, put the jig on, then re-load the cant to even start to saw....)

I use white pine and yellow poplar for my siding because that is what I have. My shims are a couple small squares of 5/8" plywood. I saw my cants down to an 8" width, by however tall I can get out of the log....then cut the taper from about 3/8" to 7/8" thick. I dry it on sticks for few months, then use as needed. Every barn and building on my place is sided with it.

IF you have a decent amount of timber on a place, or can get logs, a small bandmill is one of the handiest tools you'll ever own.

Shop, 23 years ago. Still holding up well. One coat of oil based stain.

Chicken house

Firewood sheds

2 hog house....lid hinged for cleanout

Hog feed house....holds 4 55gal drums, feed dumped into PVC trough

Gas station

OUTSTANDING WORK.Love it,wish I was that talented.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I do the same thing with my Woodmizer mill. Have to laugh at the YouTube guys inventing all these complicated jigs for sawing lap siding when a couple of shims does the trick a whole lot easier (most of them have to unload the cant, put the jig on, then re-load the cant to even start to saw....)

I use white pine and yellow poplar for my siding because that is what I have. My shims are a couple small squares of 5/8" plywood. I saw my cants down to an 8" width, by however tall I can get out of the log....then cut the taper from about 3/8" to 7/8" thick. I dry it on sticks for few months, then use as needed. Every barn and building on my place is sided with it.

IF you have a decent amount of timber on a place, or can get logs, a small bandmill is one of the handiest tools you'll ever own.

I am ALL about keeping things simple. I thought about mounting a cam system to help lift, then lower the cant on every other saw cut, but like you, it just seems shimming it is cheap and easy. Just doing it the "hard way" was pretty quick. Doing it alone, I was sawing about one log per hour, so that is 1.25 square per hour. In two days time, a person could side their barn.

I have been thinking about doing something similar with the bandsaw mill to cut shingles. We have a shingle making sawmill, but it is too dangerous to use in my opinion. I value my fingers so I was going to devise a method to cut shingles that was faster than what is currently available.

 

[TnAndy]

I am ALL about keeping things simple. I thought about mounting a cam system to help lift, then lower the cant on every other saw cut, but like you, it just seems shimming it is cheap and easy. Just doing it the "hard way" was pretty quick. Doing it alone, I was sawing about one log per hour, so that is 1.25 square per hour. In two days time, a person could side their barn.

I have been thinking about doing something similar with the bandsaw mill to cut shingles. We have a shingle making sawmill, but it is too dangerous to use in my opinion. I value my fingers so I was going to devise a method to cut shingles that was faster than what is currently available.

Woodmizer made (maybe still does) a lap siding, shingle maker attachment. I bought one thinking it would have some kind of guide in lowering the head to make it easy for uniform pcs of siding. Nope....it was just a 'cam' deal that did exactly what shims do....cock and uncock the cant. You still have to 'eyeball' the amount to lower the head each time. Plus the thing was heavy, and as I said before, required you to saw cants, off load them to the side, set this attachment on the bed, reload the cant into it....pain in the backside. So it hung on the wall of my saw shed for years until someone came along one day and bought it.

That said, it WAS a good tool for cutting shingles if that's what you wanted ( I didn't, cut a few to try it). You'd cut an 8-12" wide cant....I used white oak....then chainsaw cut the cant into 18-24" inch long block, then mounted 6 of the blocks in the pipe clamp holders of the attachment. It had a cam deal with a handle that would elevate the ends of all the blocks at one time so the saw head would take a taper cut off each block as it traveled down the track, then you threw the handle again, made another pass with the taper reversed. Each pass made 6 shingles. You could make a real pile of shingles pretty fast. Guy that bought it was going to make shims for mobile home companies....once they pile up pillars of cinder block for the homes, they often need to shim the last couple inches to level out the trailer.

It was a pretty simple design as I recall. The frame of the attachment was just angle steel....like 1.5 or 2". They had 6 "pony" brand 1/2" pipe clamps with short pc (like 14-16") of 1/2" pipe running across the angle to hold the shingle blocks and were also the pivot 'axle' for the blocks. Handle at the end operated individual cams under one end of each block, attached to a rod that ran back to the handle. You could probably find photos around somewhere, or maybe someone that has one local to go look at. Don't think it would be hard to fabricate one yourself.