MAI
22nd April 2012, 05:03 PM
I'd like to have a crack at making shingles for the roof of a garden shed. Shingles as a roofing material were reasonably common in Australia in the 19th century and there's still a lot of California Bungalows around that use shingles on walls as a decorative feature under a window, for example.
There's a fair bit of information on the WWW about making shingles and some useful Youtube videos but I have the feeling this is one of those crafts that might look simple but takes a lot of experience to get right.
I've done some research into what timbers were used by the early settlers for shingles and to some extent the answer is whatever was available but commonly mentioned species are ironbarks, stringybarks and casuarinas. I guess ideally a shingle timber would split readily, have good dimensional stability and good durability. I think the Europeans used oak and chestnut a lot and many shingles from the US are made of cedar.
There's a number of woodcrafts sites in the UK that sell froes (great Old English word) or shingle axes.
If anyone has any experience in making shingles or can give some advice on what timbers they have found work well that would be great
Thanks
David
There's a fair bit of information on the WWW about making shingles and some useful Youtube videos but I have the feeling this is one of those crafts that might look simple but takes a lot of experience to get right.
I've done some research into what timbers were used by the early settlers for shingles and to some extent the answer is whatever was available but commonly mentioned species are ironbarks, stringybarks and casuarinas. I guess ideally a shingle timber would split readily, have good dimensional stability and good durability. I think the Europeans used oak and chestnut a lot and many shingles from the US are made of cedar.
There's a number of woodcrafts sites in the UK that sell froes (great Old English word) or shingle axes.
If anyone has any experience in making shingles or can give some advice on what timbers they have found work well that would be great
Thanks
David