Choosing lumber for Eave Brackets

[Steven Green]

Ok fellow Creekers, what kind of lumber would you use to fabricate 30" x 2 Eave Brackets to replace the rotted out and missing ones on an 1850 Italianate house. I can get Cypress but I'd like to be as frugal as I can manage. There are over 100 brackets on the home and I was thinking since they'd have to be laminated if I don't use Cypress would Yellow Pine be stable enough? Or any other type of construction lumber you might use if you were doing it.
If this isn't the appropriate forum for this I apologise.

[Mike Archambeau]

Pine will not last. Unless you want to do it all over again in 10 years, you should use cedar. Western red cedar will last longer than eastern white cedar. If you use cedar, prime with oil based primer , and paint with a really good latex paint like Benjamin Moore Aura, they will last 100 years.

If you want forever, you could make them out of pvc (Azek). But seems like an old house deserves good wook instead of plastic.

Be sure to protect yourself working around all the lead paint that is surely on that old house.

Good luck with your project!

[Aaron Wingert]

Steven I agree that pine isn't the product to use for your brackets/corbels. Cypress would be a great material for this if it isn't a total budget breaker. I've cut literally hundreds of them out of western red cedar with great results.

One hint...
If you're cutting them from undried lumber or timber, be careful after cutting them. I learned a lesson about rapid moisture loss when I was cutting some 6" cedar (undried) timber brackets in the garage and putting them in the driveway as I finished them. The sun was shining, the weather was warm, and when I turned the saw off I could hear them cracking and popping as they dried out. Ever since, I've learned to keep them in the shade for a day or so after cutting to let them acclimate a little slower and have never had that problem again.

When you install them, be sure to use a good quality primer. I'd really suggest backpriming them too, just for good measure.

[Peter Quinn]

Ok fellow Creekers, what kind of lumber would you use to fabricate 30" x 2 Eave Brackets to replace the rotted out and missing ones on an 1850 Italianate house. I can get Cypress but I'd like to be as frugal as I can manage. There are over 100 brackets on the home and I was thinking since they'd have to be laminated if I don't use Cypress would Yellow Pine be stable enough? Or any other type of construction lumber you might use if you were doing it.
If this isn't the appropriate forum for this I apologise.

If they are strictly decorative and non structural brackets, and they are paint grade, I would seriously consider having them fabricated out of polyurethane foam. It might be worth the expense on a quantity of 100. I'd figure these things are close to 20" in the air, no? Who the bleep cares what they are made of frankly. I love wood and woodworking but some of these details on older homes work better using modern methods. Once primed a light weight injection molded foam product looks EXACTLY like a cedar bracket from terra firma.

If it must be wood, and they are largely protected by a soffit, you could probably make it with pine, assuming it is acclimated to the exterior and well primed on all sides. Possibly an epoxy primer or a water proofing sealer would enhance its longevity but these products might add significantly to the cost. I would not use green construction grade SYP for anything other than construction. It is simply not appropriate for paint grade exterior mill work. It must be KD SYP meant for trim work. as in dried to 10% or less. Around my way that costs more than cypress and many other species in a select grade.

I have used extruded polyurathane trim boards every where possible on my circa 1900's home. I keep away from using it for hand contact surfaces where the textural and tactile quality of wood is a significant pleasure. But for ornamental purposes of a paint grade nature, its plastic for me.