Thread: Cypress cladding

To remachine old flooring into weather boards could cause you a lot of problems. The cypress would be very brittle and a pain to get right. I would remove the tongues with a bench saw, may be even rout a heavy arris on that "new" edge and nail the boards on over lapping them by say 10mm (at the most) thereby giving the impression of a weather board.
You may find you will have to drill each nail hole due to the splitty nature of old cypress.

It's actually brand new cypress, part of a massive oversupply when building my house (milled and kiln dried perhaps 3 or 4 years ago) but still splitty.

My thought was to use the table saw to remove one side of the groove to create the bottom edge of the weatherboard, or maybe slightly more if it looks too small.

Then on the second pass on the table saw to remove the tongue, and a third pass (with a tall fence and angled blade) create the taper to a thickness to suit the rabbet created from the groove.

That seems to replicate a weatherboard shape and remove least material. I can set up the table saw for each cut and mass produce! The lining boards would be a touch thin, and relatively narrow (in terms of coverage height) compared to "real" weatherboards.

The question is really is it worth it? If T+G stands up reasonably well to the elements then it's easier to use it without further machining, but if T+G will hold water and decay then conversion to weatherboard is the go....

Why not consider putting them on, as is, vertically. Well primed, they should last fine, especially for the purpose you have proposed.
TM

What's wrong with putting t&g on horizontally? If the tongue is up and the groove down, then they should be waterproof, then just seal them with paint or whatever.

I've seen plenty of sheds lined in t&g in the UK where the weather is much more inclement than here! And how much effort do your kids and chooks warrant, really?

I used left over weather boards for my cubby and chook run cos that's what I had, but if I'd had t&g I'd have used that. In fact the chook run now incorporates a shed made from old fence palings butted up together, which leak like a sieve, but its a chook run, right? It is however, fairly draught proof, which is more important to the chooks.

The only reason for not using T+G vertically was to match the house, which is weatherboard. Using the timber horizontally, ether as T+G or remade as weatherboard, keeps the same general "look" of horizontal boards.

Using the timber "as is" as horizontal T+G is the easiest option. I simply have no experience of how well it will survive. It would seem to have more spaces for water to get trapped than in weatherboard, but as our climate is quite dry it probably won't matter.

Warb ,
there is a house kit manufacturing company here , Framos , who use a double tongue and groove system to lock their 'log'profiles on top of one another.
They work well.
As long as the groove is driven fully down on to the tongue , before securing , water leakage will not be an issue . In fact the tongues and grooves swelling due to moisture in the air will be your friend .
A spot of glue at each meeting of t&g and stud won't go astray either.
cheers ,
Jock

Since your t&g is new, the problem is likely to be a few years down the track when they've started to twist and warp. Maybe a bead of silicon along the front of each tongue before you fit the next one on would help. Otherwise, you could wait and see, and silicon any gaps that appear. Painting both sides would help, ideally before you fit the boards.

Good Morning Warbs

The risk, as I see it, of using cypress T&G as exterior cladding, is that movement in the timber as it wets and dries could eventually work the fastenings loose, or, in an extreme case if the wall was done in dry conditions would be the boards expanding against each other and buckling the wall. You could probably guard against this by loosely spacing the boards - even using matches as temporary spacers whilst nailing/screwing - so the boards have space to move.

Alternatively just use the T&G as weatherboards - tongue side up (up is on the inside) - but the full width of the exposed groove edge might be too obvious, especially on the scaled down cubby & chook sheds.

Thirdly, you could use your table saw to convert one side of the groove edge into a rebate, and then just overlap the board below. Risk here is brittleness of cypress. Forget about removing the tongue as it will be on the inside and invisible.

Good Luck

Cheers

Graeme