Marri Timber Weatherboards

[West OZ Mark]

I have a lucas mill where I mill up logs for joinery and furniture making but I am in the process of building our own house. I have purchased a attachment for my mill to cut timber weatherboards so I can clad our house externaly with Marri weather boards. I cant find much information on sawing weatherboards on the net. I would like to know if Marri is a suitable timber, Moisture content of the boards (as I am planning on cutting the log and sealing the board with a clear UV sealer straight away) and is Quater sawing the boards OK?
Any helpful information on this subject and any helpful tips would be appreciated

Thanks...Mark

[Sigidi]

Hi Mark,

I have a Lucas too and have also cut quite a few w/b's with it.

q/sawing - with the Lucas attachment you can't just quatersaw the boards. What you have to do is open up the log and get a good sized face, then for a model 8, do a 7.5" drop and cut all your w/b's vertically, you can't cut them horizontally with the lucas attachment. If your log is big enough you can keep doing drops until you get to the bottom of the log. As you cut the w/b's each one comes off 'opposite' compared to the previous board. What I mean is the first w/b will be right way up(fat edge down, thin edge up), but the next w/b actually gets cut upside down (fat up up thin edge down) and so on.

Sealer - personally I wouldn't use sealer straight away. I'd cut 'em (before you do your framing), stack 'em in pairs (alternated to give a flat surface) then sticker at 300 crs between layers of pairs, and strap the daylights out of it with ratchet straps. and keep it stacked out of the sun. Then do your framing and put the boards up once your framing is done. Overlap them 30mm and hand nail them with one nail per board/wall stud making sure the nail is placed at 35mm from bottom of w/b (no double nails in boards) This will allow each board to move given extremes of wet and dry weather without splitting. Pre-drill joins and ends before nailing to prevent splitting the w/b.

I'll have to post some pics of my first little w/b attachment project if I can find the pics

Hope it helps

[West OZ Mark]

Thanks Sigidi

That is the info I wanted. I will have a go at that and see how it turns out.

Thanks!!

[scottyk]

I have used Marri a bit and have read some stuff on it that says the gum veins in the logs make the wastage really high. Even the best quality Marri that I have used has veins in it and this would not go real well in the weather.
I have limited exposure but perhaps Wild Dingo could expand for me.
Scotty

[West OZ Mark]

Can anyone else give me any advice in relation to feasibility of using Marri for weatherboards.

Thanks...Mark