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Roger Rettenmeier
10-18-2014, 7:27 PM
Started a project on my old house, insulating and residing.

I started with logs and a sawmill to make the siding298612298613298614298618 .

That is my friend and his sawmill. After several rounds of hauling logs and milling, I had a good stack of wood.
298615. I then stripped one layer of old siding298619. After that I bored holes in the top of the wall between the studs and blew in cellulose insulation. I replaced windows and resided.298616298617. That is one wall done.

Mark Bolton
10-18-2014, 7:37 PM
How do you deal with the issues of when the battens and the siding shrink. And then when through the seasons the battens and siding expand / contract and cup? I have never seen a good system with regards to board and batten in the modern age. And it's not cheap.

Roger Rettenmeier
10-18-2014, 8:17 PM
First, about the expense part. I did not buy my board and batten, I sawed it from raw materials, so for me it was less expensive than buying other material for siding. My primary goal was to have insulation in the 100 year old house, and the 4x 8 siding had seen better days. I was able to get the wood for nothing, and have my time, gas and saw blades invested in the project.

As far as the wood "working", I expect it will happen. The wood was custom milled using a technique called "ring centered sawing". There is a discussion about that on the Norwood saw mill site. It comes up near the top of a google search. The boards were dry, flat and quite stable after I stickered and dried them for a season here in Thompson Falls. They were liberally coated with shake oil befor I put them up. The west wall has been up over a year with no ill effects, and my shop gables, which are also board and bat have been on for 10 years now, and are quite stable. Might be a lack of humidity in this area, but the board and batten is working out well for me.

ernest dubois
10-19-2014, 7:30 AM
As I can make it out there are basically two main "issues" with the siding shrinking up, (in fact it goes both ways, right, it shrinks then it expands, wood). Gaps could open up beyond the battens or lines of untreated sections could get exposed. If gaps do appear it seems to me that the battens were simply not put on there right, with enough overhang or they were to narrow, maybe neither the planks or battens were well seasoned or inappropriate wood had been chosen, for example Southern Yellow Pine is an unstable wood as I know it. To avoid the other one the planks should be given their finish prior to battening. In the case of tung and groove these should be pre-finished
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like the section of siding in the background there. Well that other siding, the wide planks of poplar are just butted and that's it but these are my example of "doing it myself" which is the way I have been doing it more and more.
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The wood gets dropped off early that morning.
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Then we saw it up in good thick planks, what do we care, this is not expensive material.
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and stack it there ready for the next step.
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A true sealing at the end grain to slow down the evaporation there.
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I really do prefer standing the wood vertically if I can afford it to dry out, at least initially.

Todd Burch
10-19-2014, 8:13 AM
I just bought a house and barn, built in '86 with board and batten siding. Western Red Cedar (WRC). I have to replace a lot of siding. Many of the boards are split, and some have rot at the bottom where they were too long and actually touched the step flashing.

Above, I see the nailing pattern in that one close up picture - the one with the nail gun and (I suppose) Roger. My boards are nailed like the ones on the left - pairs of nail, up the board, along the outer edges. I notice, however, that the nails get closer together as you move to the right in that picture. Why the change in pattern? Moisture content?

My understanding of why vertical wood siding, or any similarly nailed wood, splits is this. When wood gets wet, is expands, and when it dries out, it shrinks. (No arguments so far, I suppose. ;) ). When wood is nailed, like on the left side of the picture, along the outer edges, and it gets wet, the wood tries to expand, but the nails keep the wood from expanding. Subsequently, since it can't expand as far as it would like, the fibers compress on each other, making them (for lack of a more technical reason or description…), and the board overall, narrower. When the wood dries out, and attempts to reach EMC (equilibrium moisture content), since it is not as wide as before, and the nails do not allow the outside edges of the move, the only solution the board has is to split at its weakest point, which is usually at the middle.

If this is indeed correct, and I think it is (I believe I learned this when I took a wood drying course at the Univ. of Tennessee with (the late) Gene Wengert), I think an acceptable solution to keep boards from splitting, would be to slot the nail holes. It wouldn't take much of a slot, maybe 1/4 wide, at most, along the outer edge, and could be 100% covered by the battens. I suspect doing this would yield a VERY forgiving siding job and years of allowable movement, painted or not, no splitting, and less maintenance overall.

Also, hand nailing, I presume, would also yield tighter results, than a nail gun.

Then, the battens could be hand nailed in the middle, and down tight, to ward off moisture infiltration. I probably would not caulk this either, even if painting.

Thoughts?

Mark Bolton
10-19-2014, 8:39 AM
The late gene wengert? You mean he was late for your course?

Joe Bradshaw
10-19-2014, 9:15 AM
Roger, good job. I guess that I focused on the finished product, instead of the (maybe) problems.

Roger Rettenmeier
10-19-2014, 9:19 AM
I started on the right, and was "just nailing up boards". I looked at them and thought it would be better to nail near the outside of the board, so that the battens would cover up the nails. I think the nail pattern in Ennest top photo might be the way to go, with nail pairs slightly offset.

Mark Bolton
10-19-2014, 9:28 AM
The problems I always see with board and batten siding a several fold but a very dry climate with little humidity is a major plus for sure. First, if of course the material isnt well dried it simply the siding shrinks from below the nails and the battens shrink as well creating gaps between the siding boards and battens as well as loose nails. In that same vein B&B siding is a technique of old which usually means it was generally installed on barns and old buildings that are just loose in their construction. This meant that the siding could lose any accumulated moisture on the backside much more readily. Moisture on the backside (which is inevitable) of course means cupping. The backside gets more wet, expands, the front side is exposed to more air and sun and is dry, and the siding board is continually trying to cup and loosen the battens. This, and just the normal cycles of wood expansion and contraction with the seasons and weather, is continually working to loosen the nails. This is a very common issue even with cedar shakes and claps. You can often see on cedar claps a wall with all the nails sticking out off the wall an inch or so. This is because the claps get wet on the face, they sit flat to the building, dry out, grip the nail, and then the outer face dries and the clap cups off the building slightly (pulling the nail). The process repeats and it slowly jacks all the nails right out of the wall. Same with shakes leading to costly and time consuming rain screen details behind the siding to keep it stable.

Then you add in the issues of installing B&B on a fairly modern building, with housewrap or some other building wrap behind it, and the vapor drive from the living space behind it and the issues often get even more complicated. The vapor drive from the building adds moisture behind the siding (through the wrap) and the tighter installation means the back side of the siding dissipates its moisture very very slowly.

In my area (wetter with times of high humidity) its a nightmare. In short order the siding becomes open and leaky. The worst part about this in my area is the house becomes a haven for bugs. Asian Beetles, Stink Bugs, Mud Daubers, Carpenter Bees, Wasps, and so on. Plus the maintenance, but anyone putting any type of wood siding its a given there will be maintenance.

With regards to the cost, of course there is really no commercially available comparable product other than T-111 or a similar product and the look is just not the same. That said, at $1 a square foot, and the speed of installation, and overall tightness, the comparison is simple, the T-111 is unbelievably cheaper. Even discounting labor (not that you can with regards to sawing, drying, handling, and installing) the B&B siding is far far greater than $1/square foot. But the look is of course much much nicer.

Ive just never seen a good approach in this climate that works well over the long haul. But its true that any commercial wood siding other than a sheet product is super expensive in comparison.

With regards to the nailing, the nails out under the battens in my part of the country would never work. The siding boards would split in short order right up the middle. Now this is with flat sawn material. The common practice is a nail in the center (visible) and the ends of the boards float under the batten for expansion.

Just my experience.

ernest dubois
10-19-2014, 9:49 AM
The nailing pattern is important for that and other reasons, for example it becomes less important if you are nailing siding atop of sheathing like in the first example, more critical if siding is nailed right to the frame like in my picture, but in my opinion the technique touched on plays even a bigger role. A nail gun will weaken the wood near the ends particularly because it fires the nails in with such a velocity that they will follow the path of least resistance along the growth pattern of the wood and begin to open up a split. Hammering is better in that way and action can be taken to reduce the chance of a split. Even better is hammering in square or cut nails. Splits down the middle are more a result of cupping, ok related to how the plank is attached, than expansion and contraction across the grain which nails can accommodate. Something that will help, more or less, depending on the planks in question, is heartwood to the outside. The slot is the right way of thinking about the problem and can be easily done by first laying the head of the nail perpendicular to the grain at the mark where it will enter and tap it in to sever the unsupported cross grain at the surface.

Roger Rettenmeier
10-19-2014, 10:27 AM
Thanks for the input, guys.
I still have the east and south walls left to do. The south wall is the one that gets the beating from sun, and therefor most drastic temperature change. i will make some changes in my installation process. I am thinking my generally dry climate is a pretty good bonus for this type of siding.

ernest dubois
10-19-2014, 10:59 AM
I have to wonder if a lot of what's going on in what Mark has posted up is not some kind of example of false economy, (probably more key is how appropriate or compatible is the method i.e. should there be a solid wood board and batten siding attached directly to a continuous substrate?) But going with the former and questioning, is the under-dimensioning of the siding material to save on the initial cost the problem, which then has to be re-done unnecessarily soon as the result. Couldn't simply beefing up the thickness of the siding, providing more stability, be the solution to the perceived expense of the material?

Mark Bolton
10-19-2014, 11:03 AM
Thanks for the input, guys.
I still have the east and south walls left to do. The south wall is the one that gets the beating from sun, and therefor most drastic temperature change. i will make some changes in my installation process. I am thinking my generally dry climate is a pretty good bonus for this type of siding.

Agree completely about the climate

Todd Burch
10-19-2014, 11:22 AM
The late gene wengert? You mean he was late for your course?

No, he died a few years ago.

Tony Joyce
10-19-2014, 12:07 PM
No, he died a few years ago.

Strange his last post on Woodweb is dated June 13, 2014

ernest dubois
10-19-2014, 12:08 PM
Well, you may call this siding, you may call it paneling, you may call it boards on a wall, to me its all the same technique. In line with the topic at hand, wood cut into planks from the stem here at home, seasoned to the appropriate degree, attached to the wall and having a floating spline at the joint.http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c325/ernestdubois/DSCF0327_zps15a0ed1d.jpg

Jim Andrew
10-19-2014, 4:18 PM
Kind of late to this thread, but would it not help the life of the board and batt siding, if you put your finish on all surfaces before you install it? Seems like sealing the boards would add to the life, and reduce the shrinking and swelling.

Mark Bolton
10-19-2014, 4:57 PM
No, he died a few years ago.

Uh yeah.. i just got a personal invite to a speaking engagement where he was one of the speakers. Perhaps they cloned him.

Mark Bolton
10-19-2014, 5:06 PM
Kind of late to this thread, but would it not help the life of the board and batt siding, if you put your finish on all surfaces before you install it? Seems like sealing the boards would add to the life, and reduce the shrinking and swelling.

It would most definitely slow down the rate of absorption.

Mark Bolton
10-19-2014, 5:23 PM
The nailing pattern is important for that and other reasons, for example it becomes less important if you are nailing siding atop of sheathing like in the first example, more critical if siding is nailed right to the frame like in my picture, but in my opinion the technique touched on plays even a bigger role. A nail gun will weaken the wood near the ends particularly because it fires the nails in with such a velocity that they will follow the path of least resistance along the growth pattern of the wood and begin to open up a split. Hammering is better in that way and action can be taken to reduce the chance of a split. Even better is hammering in square or cut nails. Splits down the middle are more a result of cupping, ok related to how the plank is attached, than expansion and contraction across the grain which nails can accommodate. Something that will help, more or less, depending on the planks in question, is heartwood to the outside. The slot is the right way of thinking about the problem and can be easily done by first laying the head of the nail perpendicular to the grain at the mark where it wil enter and tap it in to sever the unsupported cross grain at the surface.

I dont mean anything by this other than conversation, but such attention to detail (slotting, cut nails, and the like) would put such an effort into the astronomically expensive (it man hours and dollars) realm.

The simple fact of the matter is that the B&B siding approach is conventionally looked upon as a way to side a structure cheaply with either free, or very inexpensive, logs. It relies on devaluing hundreds and hundreds of hours of tree cutting, log handling, loading and off-loading of logs, sawing costs consisting of only the out of pocket expenses of fuel and blades as opposed to the initial cost of the mill, the cost of its wear and tear, the cost of the chainsaw, the cost of the wear and tear on the chainsaw, replacement cost, off-bearing the lumber, stacking to dry, re-stacking, surfacing, and so on.

I am not opposed at all to the practice. I think its great, and the look is also great, however thinking of it as any form of cost savings is simply lying to yourself. It is by far the most expensive siding option you could choose. Its like the common discussions here of milling your own flooring. Its very romantic, and would result in a structure you look at with fondness because of the work you put in but it is by far the most expensive siding or flooring you could ever opt for.

Even in commercial logging, the logs themselves are a trivial (almost nothing) cost in the actual cost of the end product.

Todd Burch
10-19-2014, 5:33 PM
Well, I was obviously mistaken. I surely would have lost the prize in a dead or alive quiz contest. I could have sworn I read a few years ago he had passed.

Mark Bolton
10-19-2014, 5:47 PM
Well, I was obviously mistaken. I surely would have lost the prize in a dead or alive quiz contest. I could have sworn I read a few years ago he had passed.

No pressure from me, Im in your shoes more times than I can count. At least the outcome is good in that he is still around!! :D

Scott T Smith
10-19-2014, 7:41 PM
No, he died a few years ago.

Oh really? Who's occupying his body and posting on the Forestry Forum, Woodweb, etc? ;)

Scott T Smith
10-19-2014, 8:00 PM
Well, I was obviously mistaken. I surely would have lost the prize in a dead or alive quiz contest. I could have sworn I read a few years ago he had passed.

:D Been there too!

Scott T Smith
10-19-2014, 8:02 PM
Started a project on my old house, insulating and residing.

I started with logs and a sawmill to make the siding298612298613298614298618 .

That is my friend and his sawmill. After several rounds of hauling logs and milling, I had a good stack of wood.
298615. I then stripped one layer of old siding298619. After that I bored holes in the top of the wall between the studs and blew in cellulose insulation. I replaced windows and resided.298616298617. That is one wall done.

Roger, your siding looks great!

I've installed quite a bit of B&B siding here on the farm (as well as milling it). Nailing technique varies depending upon if the siding is dry or green.

I think that your idea of removing the old siding, adding insulation and then residing was a good one. Hopefully it will be much warmer inside this winter!

Roger Rettenmeier
10-19-2014, 8:17 PM
It is definitely an "Opportunity cost" thing. The mill is here, the wood is here, either firewood or lumber. The cost of my time is my free time. I never work too hard at my recreational sawing and milling. This was a project that needed doing, and it has taken a while to accumulate the siding, dry it ,and finally just do it. My opportunity cost is a few hundred bucks and my time. I could have watched tv instead of doing this project, and then PAID (horror) someone to do it. The dollar cost in my case was fairly low. The opportunity cost depends on the individual

Roger Rettenmeier
10-19-2014, 8:27 PM
Thanks Scott, nice avatar

Todd Burch
10-19-2014, 9:28 PM
Well, you may call this siding, you may call it paneling, you may call it boards on a wall, to me its all the same technique. In line with the topic at hand, wood cut into planks from the stem here at home, seasoned to the appropriate degree, attached to the wall and having a floating spline at the joint.

Ernest. Your wall reminds me of a French Day bed that I repaired for a lady a long time ago - ~'99. I don't remember the repair I did, but I do remember the construction of the headboard. Like a board or two I see on your wall, on this headboard, none of the boards had parallel edges. When I first saw the headboard, I thought… how silly - the edges of the boards aren't parallel. But, after studying it a bit, and thinking on it, I realized the craftsman was a genius. Or, at least, just practical. Back when the bed was made, I'm fairly certain there were no (or very few) power tools. The craftsman would have worked the wood with his hands and his hand tools. The idea to make edges parallel to each, only for the sake of being parallel, would be silly to him. What a lot of extra work that would have been! So, if the board came off the tree and it was wedge shaped, so be it.

Several years later a lady asked me to make her some blanket chests with her cherry, from a tree that was on her parents homestead. She played on the tree when she was growing up. The wood had been cut into shorter sections and then sawn into boards, and these boards were ALL KINDS of crazy shapes. Lots of wedges. I remembered the headboard I had worked on, and told her I was going to use the boards, pretty much, "as is", and I told her the story of the headboard. When she took delivery of the 2 blanket chests, she was SO happy I had left the character of the boards and maximized their use. It was more work - working will silly shaped panels, but very unique in the end.

(I was able to find the pictures from 2002)

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Todd Burch
10-19-2014, 9:35 PM
:D Been there too!


No pressure from me, Im in your shoes more times than I can count. At least the outcome is good in that he is still around!! :D

OK, can you name this guy? Is this Gene? This is the guy I was thinking that had passed. I'm on the left… this was taken in 2002 (I believe.) at the Univ of Tennessee during a Solar Wood Drying course.

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ernest dubois
10-20-2014, 10:29 AM
To Marc Bolton, Here I make no claims either but am just going along with your conversation and adding my perspective. Your figuring does make a certain sense and of course it all needs to be taken measure of but I don't think it gets at the whole picture, you got the costs up there but not the opportunity costs for one, that is to say while someone is out making the buck to feed into the economy you are talking about, there are things, activities that one is giving up in that process. I never have been able to make any sense of a logic that dictates spending the bulk of my time doing something maybe not even necessarily related to my interests, to facilitate my true life.
I also differ in the whole conceptualization. This is a way of covering or completing a wall, a means of protection from the elements, that's it, not copying a certain historical style or living a fantasy. When the choice is made that it is the way to go forward than it should be done right. To draw comparisons really is not helpful. I can imagine an argument for some kind of artificial maybe even a super cheap sheeting made up from petroleum byproducts or even better, cast composite materials based on a mineralized fiber mined from deep in the ground that would even be fire proof and cheap at the box store. Can you tell me where the comparison begins? I don't know.

ernest dubois
10-20-2014, 10:49 AM
To Todd Burch, The old Dutch miller would call it "gerend" and that's a word not used now that refers to something like tapered, even most Dutch people don't know, either the word or the technique, all a bit lost in time it seems. Sitting in the cathedral from the thirteenth cent. last year at a concert I looked up at the ceiling there and this was the technique used only it was oak lying side-by-side across the massive ceiling beams. Very pronounced effect from that distance. Well, I knew of it before then, I even have a floor in the house salvaged from somewhere, I forget, like that and have gone to cutting and using planks that way more and more. There is less wasted wood, and as your cherry box shows you can get more from a little wood.

Todd, I thought I would supplement this reply with this picture just found, if you catch the kitchen peninsula, as I call it there in the lower right corner, along with the door panels beneath the sink.
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c325/ernestdubois/DSC01678copy_zps28bec2bf.jpg

Todd Burch
10-20-2014, 7:01 PM
Yes, I like it. I don't know the equivalent word to "gerend", but I like it. Thanks for the picture.

I suppose some might call the style uneducated, or inferior, or sloppy. I see it as practical and making a bold statement. For panels, I think it is perfectly suitable.

I also like the window in that picture. Love the shelf between the upper and lower sash.

Mark Bolton
10-20-2014, 8:08 PM
To Marc Bolton, Here I make no claims either but am just going along with your conversation and adding my perspective. Your figuring does make a certain sense and of course it all needs to be taken measure of but I don't think it gets at the whole picture, you got the costs up there but not the opportunity costs for one, that is to say while someone is out making the buck to feed into the economy you are talking about, there are things, activities that one is giving up in that process. I never have been able to make any sense of a logic that dictates spending the bulk of my time doing something maybe not even necessarily related to my interests, to facilitate my true life.
I also differ in the whole conceptualization. This is a way of covering or completing a wall, a means of protection from the elements, that's it, not copying a certain historical style or living a fantasy. When the choice is made that it is the way to go forward than it should be done right. To draw comparisons really is not helpful. I can imagine an argument for some kind of artificial maybe even a super cheap sheeting made up from petroleum byproducts or even better, cast composite materials based on a mineralized fiber mined from deep in the ground that would even be fire proof and cheap at the box store. Can you tell me where the comparison begins? I don't know.

Ernest,

I made no assertion that as opposed to fabricating ones own materials they would be arbitrarily better served going out to a job and earning the money to purchase said materials and labor. Where you came up with such delusion I have no idea. If any individual sees fit to stay on their own property and their own time and make every single item to fulfill their existence that is perfectly fine with me. The point is, when something is so consummately labor intensive, AND has financial outlays which are conveniently ignored, please do not intimate that you are "saving money". Or that it "didnt cost you anything". The sawmill cost you money, and will cost you money to maintain, repair, and replace as well as operate. The chainsaw cost you money, and will cost you money to repair, maintain, and replace and operate. Band blades, sharpening. The labor to load and unload logs, stack and re-stack material, off-bear from the mill, move, clean-up, dispose of, burn, sawdust, all has a cost. Even if that labor is only your own and you have nothing to do it has a cost. They are hours you would not give to anyone else for free. So lets say we apply $3/hour to your time. At that very point, your siding, paneling, whatever, becomes some of the most expensive material on the face of the earth. And this is at an hourly rate that would have you incarcerated for if you were paying an employee. Whether we compare this material to vinyl siding (Im guessing that was one of your riddles) or Hardie siding (another riddle) is irrelevant. The simple fact of the matter is that instantaneously it becomes comparable in price, and likely far more expensive. That said, if one is accepting of the maintenance I would agree its a far better option that either of those riddles.

The point is not that your wasting your time. I am all for it, I own a sawmill similar to the OP. I own over 100 acres of mixed timber. That said, when I saw and dry material off my property it is precious material. I know the OP gets his logs free but even at that the cost of the end product is very very high. When I mill material off my property I am forced (in my mind) to factor in the cost of the mill, the cost of the property, the cost of the tractor and associated accessories, chains, tire wear, replacement cost, and so on, of all the equipment that goes into getting the board into the door of my shop to be made into a usable end product.

If I werent to include these I would simply, and undoubtedly, be lying to myself.

Now I agree fully that some of the process is romance. Some of the process is fun. Some of the process is cleansing to the spirit and soul. That however doesnt mean that I am not paying hard earned money to cleanse my soul (and willing to do so). I am losing ground to "have fun". Because if I were to go out and work hard away from my property I would earn far far more dollars per hour than I ever gain making my own flooring or siding. For me personally its why I opt to try to saw choice material. Because it is very very expensive material.

It becomes a decision of whether your personally interested in spending hours and hours working on your property to make a product you can buy with a few hours of work per week OR go out and work those few hours and spend the remainder of the time hiking in the woods, hunting wild mushrooms, hunting, swinging in a hammock, filling your fingernails, or making love to a beautiful woman. Take your pick.

I can buy rough sawn oak for less than $300/MBF. It would take me days to fell those trees, skid them to the mill, buck them up, load them to the skid way, saw them, sticker them, off bear the slabs, burn the slabs, move them to an air drying area, move them again to the kiln, and so on. I can easily spend a single day off my property and make more than that $300. Even if it took two days it would be a win win.

Larry Edgerton
10-20-2014, 8:51 PM
Roger, I went to high school in Missoula and lived in Kalispell after graduating in the 70's.

I think there was an old fellow in Thompson Falls that made camper shells. He retired from Boeing and made them just like an airplane fuselage. I wore out four trucks with that thing on the back and it was still in good shape when I sold it with the last truck.
I still have friends out there in the Lincoln area but have not made it out in 7 years. Next year I hope.

On the board and batten siding. The way I way taught was to nail the board in the center, space about a quarter, then nail or screw the batten through that gap. The theory being that the wood can move this way in either direction and the batten allows it to move but keeps out the weather. I have done some barn repair using this method and it seems to work very well at keeping the rain on the outside of the wall with almost no cracks. Could be absolutely wrong, but that is how I was taught by a wise old man.

Larry

Roger Rettenmeier
10-20-2014, 10:56 PM
Hi Larry,
When I moved to Mt. in '85, I started out in Flathead county, and Kalispell. I spent most of my time working in Lincoln, Flathead and Sanders counties. I moved from Kila area in Flathead 10 years ago, to my current 100+ year old house in T Falls. My current job takes me to Missoula routinely, and I have worked in Lincoln (the town you refer to) this last summer.

Thanks for some more siding tips.

ernest dubois
10-21-2014, 4:26 AM
I agree with the way you qualify the work of getting good and workable wood from the tree to… up on the wall, in this instance, I've gone through it all myself. No disagreement here, and that's really the core point. Where, as I see it, we differ is in how you distinguish the monetary side of the activity with the rest of it, "romance," "fun," "cleansing the spirit and soul", all that, as if the one were the hard cold reality in opposition to the soft, fluffy dreamy fantasy. And so you call the one way more expensive or exorbitant. But by doing that you emphasize the point, that in choosing to go for the money return and not these others, that also involved a cost, you give up the fun the romance, maybe something learned, knowledge or insight gained… What's that worth? I guess you could put a dollar figure to it if you wanted, it seems to be the mind-set of the times. On the one hand you exchange your time for the dollar waiting for the chance to get to some of that other stuff. Someone like me for example, might see that is an awfully high price to pay, and so buying the lumber good-to-go at the box store becomes the "expensive" route.

Even I fall into the trap of this murderous language of economy sometimes.

You get near to the way I feel about it yourself. How closely related the one is to the other which I put this way: hunting wild mushrooms, while selecting trees to fell, hiking in the woods, after felling, limbing and bucking, swinging in a hammock, on a break from milling, making love to a beautiful woman, that afternoon in the workshop. I'll choose all of the above thanks.

I will say that making the decision at the point where we have begun, how to source your material, is a bit of a false choice and is more difficult, maybe even unrealistic, than when the choice has been already made far before that time. Here I'm talking about the matter of life-style, and not in the sense of how that gets presented by media in any way, a considered, conscious ordering of values and what it is one wants over the long haul. It gets personal doesn't it?

ernest dubois
10-21-2014, 4:37 AM
Yes, I like it. I don't know the equivalent word to "gerend", but I like it. Thanks for the picture.

I suppose some might call the style uneducated, or inferior, or sloppy. I see it as practical and making a bold statement. For panels, I think it is perfectly suitable.

I also like the window in that picture. Love the shelf between the upper and lower sash.


Let them call it what they want then and I'll call it something old that maybe makes a kind sense.

The windows, and jambs I have made as well called "kloosterraam", cloister window. The top window, hinged at the stile swings outward the bottom window sliding upwards, from the outside closed off with a shutter.

Curt Harms
10-21-2014, 8:58 AM
Todd, those look great! If nothing else, it's clear they didn't come from a chain furniture store. I can imagine it was a quite a bit of work though

Brian Elfert
10-21-2014, 10:42 AM
Yes, sometimes one can pay for stuff or work done and it is easier than doing it yourself, but you need to have the money to pay for it. I work a job where I am paid a fixed salary. I can't work extra hours to make a little extra money. I often do stuff that I could pay someone to do for me because I don't have the extra money to pay someone.

ernest dubois
10-21-2014, 10:55 AM
When it comes down to it this is the boat I'm in - seeing as how I possess no such thing as a credit card.

Todd Burch
10-21-2014, 10:56 AM
Thanks Curt. I wish I had pictures of them with the BLO and lacquer finish I used. They were awesome. I ran out of the customer's cherry and had to use a couple pieces of scrap I had laying around for the top rim. Quite noticeable. But, that was > 12 years ago, so it's probably evened out a bit by now. I saw the lady that commissioned them about a year and a half ago. I was at a rain water symposium, and ended up sitting next to her. She looked familiar, and I looked familiar to her. We finally figured out how we knew each other over lunch. She said the chests were holding up fine, and she and her nieces loved them. When she first brought the wood to me, it had active borers in it. I advised her to go find a guy with a dry kiln, cook the bugs, and bring the wood back. I never thought she would come back, but she did!

Ernest - can you share your plans for the window? Private message is fine. (I was not able to PM you).

Roger - you've sparked a lot of discussion! Good thread!