Thread: Hippy House

Steve

That's a bit different. Presuemeably the 50 x 25 is intended to be the cover strip. If the timber is being used green, that may barely cover the joint between the wide boards after shrinkage.

There again it depends on the timber and perhaps they plan is to season the boards first.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Stopper

I thought the forum might like to hear about a recent request I received from a customer in tune with nature and building a house on small acreage. The order was for a large quantity of 200 x 25 and 50x25 all 2.4m long. The house is to be clad on the outside in the old vertical board and battern style which I think will look good however the customer wants all the timber to be nailed up in the same direction that it was pointing in the tree.

Errr . . . how the hell would they know which way up it was? Couldn't you just mark it all before hand and just say it was "earth way up" ?

Or will there be maybe some knots that give it away?

That's what I thought. You can look at the end of a board and tell where the centre of the log is but without a knot it's very hard to tell which way is up. In all the time I have been milling this is the first time I've been asked to even consider which way the board stood in the tree.The boards are going to be air dried before nailing up to. cheerssteve

Originally Posted by Stopper

In all the time I have been milling this is the first time I've been asked to even consider which way the board stood in the tree.

heh heh...

I've been milling timber on and off since the late 60s and it's the first time I've heard of such a request too. But I reckon it'd be more of a surprise if that's first time the question's ever been asked. Silly as it might sound to me, to each his own and in today's environment of diversity in opinion and belief there are bound to be 'unusual' orders.

That's definitely a 'large quantity', if it's to be anything larger than a bush hut! I'd be interested to hear if any of thye 'small millers' here would tackle such an order. I'd guesstimate it to be about 700 boards minimum, to clad a smallish 3-bedroom house!


I'd be happy to use 2" battens, even if the timber went on green. The boards are only supposed to be fixed with a half inch gap, so even a 2"x1" batten should be enough to cope with shrinkage. Change it to 3"x1" battens and you'd end up with 5 and a half inch of board showing, then 3" of batten. It's start to look more like a paling fence than board and batten cladding, IMO.


I suspect your suggestion of painting the butt-ends of the logs would be the best approach to filling the order as requested.


At some of the larger mills I've sawn timber at in recent years filling such an order woud be basically impossible. Such an order would be cut quartersawn, on sawbenches equipped with a roundabout return or a turntable at the bench, to rotate the wings and maximise quartersawn slabs, then dried and cut to width afterwards. Inevitably, a percentage of an order of 8' lengths would be docked to length, so it'd be difficut to impossible to ensure that the butt-ends of planks were marked.


'Earth-oriented' house, huh?

I've got an 'earth-oriented' bush camp, but it's got little to do with the board being right-way-up. Two sleeping huts and a kitchen/bathroom hut, clad 'board and batten' style using recycled fence paling and well-weathered sleeper offcuts! Dunno how much feng-shui #### it commands, but it sits by the lakeside and it's basically invisible from either the water or from the air.

That's 'earth-oriented' enough for me!

Steve, thats CLASSIC Ive heard it all now. Hope he paid you with the green stuff that folds and not attempt to pay with the green stuff that makes you say "Like wow man"