Thread: Weatherboards? (or was that whether boards?)

Thanks a million to all the advice regarding weatherboards. I've a job coming up where I can use that advice to satisfy my customer.

To everyone else who've used this thread to sell a product or discussed the "pros and cons" of slab milling on their knees.......start your own thread .

Is it okay if I put up this Neale???

This is part of a building I did with 150x19 rough sawn square boards instead of the normal tapered weatherboard...


and here's one I did with normal weatherboard profile boards...





The first one was all backsawn boards, some of them have shrunk and left gaps, missed paint lines etc. The second one was cut with the Lucas weatherboard attachment so the boards are cut from the mid third of the log and the boards are all vertical, this would be close to quartersawn, they all seem to be rather stable, with no obvious problems evident - this could be because I was a better builder on the second one??

Thanks Sigidi. Is the Lucas weatherboard attachment tricky to use. I've got all the instructions but wondered if there's any tips you can offer.

re bob l am with you on the no bending over . seems so much further when you have a few years. always enjoy your posts &pic , cheers bob

Neale, the weatherboard attachment is pretty easy to use, but I recall it takes a bit to get it set in your head - that's why the first one was just backsawn 19mm boards

I think it'd take me a few cuts to get it worked again now as it's been a few years since I've cut a weatherboard. I seem to remember I had to make sure no-one talked to me when I was first doing it - I had to work it through in my head to get it in the right order. The hardest thing to remember is that the first board is right side up the second is cut upside down and so on - after you've done a few you'll have no trouble.

If you're doing them for a job, I'd suggest sacrificing a couple of logs at home the day before and doing some boards to use at home, just so you're not going in cold on a paid job.

neale, serves you right to ask a silly question only kidding. the reason there's so many replies is people are giving their 2 cents worth from expierience they have had. i'd never heard of milling wboards from tallow wood coz it doesn't grow here. same for bloodwood. allans' right about the WB jigger for the lucas, takes a bit to get your brain around (took me an hour of fluffing about) but once you get it going ,it's pretty easy,but yeah, don't start talking to someone and try and concentrate.

inter is dead right you cannot have spring in weatherboards it just dosent work. you cant resaw them. you just have toi have a good log and some knolage of what the logs gunna do to cut them with the lucas attachment.

talowwood is good for cutting wheatherboard as it has verry little tention. especialy in big logs.

On the second cabin above, I found it easy working with spring in the boards, but only to 6' I kept the straight ones for above 6'...

If they pulled up at one end, I nailed off the 'straight end' then chucked a bar clamp from the joists to the top of the wb and pulled it to line and nailed it off. If it crowned in the middle, that was a bit harder, but nailed off each end and slowly pulled the middle down while nailing from the outsides into the middle. Worked fine up to 6' then my clamp was too short As an example that right hand wall you can see on the second cabin above, virtually all those bottom boards where badly awry, some as bad as 30mm over 3m and they look ok now don't they?

Originally Posted by Sigidi

Neale, the weatherboard attachment is pretty easy to use, but I recall it takes a bit to get it set in your head - that's why the first one was just backsawn 19mm boards

I think it'd take me a few cuts to get it worked again now as it's been a few years since I've cut a weatherboard. I seem to remember I had to make sure no-one talked to me when I was first doing it - I had to work it through in my head to get it in the right order. The hardest thing to remember is that the first board is right side up the second is cut upside down and so on - after you've done a few you'll have no trouble.

If you're doing them for a job, I'd suggest sacrificing a couple of logs at home the day before and doing some boards to use at home, just so you're not going in cold on a paid job.

Yeah, I'm going to have a fiddle on Monday before the job on Tuesday. Looking forward to it. Thanks for the tip Alan

It all depends on the timber you are cutting. Any pine logs I get I turn into weather boards. These have to be cut on the quarter as I turn them into a bevelled edge treated product. The same goes for jarrah. If I dont both timbers will cup and twelve months later you have a problem.

Any HWD quartersawn is the best for weather boards, but you just have to resaw from a cant to get them which adds waste & time. Thats why backsawing is easiest & quickest, using stable timbers like tallowood, bloodwood or white mahogany cupping is practically nil.
regards inter

"By using one of our jigs you can also produce tappered weatherboards in backsawn sawing. By using the EcoSaw Indexing Log Lathe you can do this with ANY type of sawmill!!! The ONLY way to get 100% backsawn timber off the log with NO additional milling.


We manufacture a fence post log splitter which just by changing the splitting head could produce tappered weatherboards with NO waste. Produces 8 posts from a 700mm log in lessthan 60 seconds, 16 rails inthe same time."
arthur[/quote]--[-Quote didnt highlight 4 some reason??]

interesting ,could you post some pics or a link to some pics and info
thanks ---mat