Does anyone here make wood shingles? I might have a lead on some red pine if they're big enough. I have seen the shingle jig for band mills and would like to make one. Is there a better way before I start?
I'm sure a shingle mill would give a more uniform and consistent product. But I was always fascinated with how the old timers made their shakes and shingles with a froe.
Ive been told by buzz-saw they make a bevel siding attachment for his mill. Dont know about shingles though. Ive thought of making black locust or red cedar (juniper) shingles (actually if they are hand split they are called shakes) with a mallet and froe. Ive talked about making an "old fashioned" looking shed for many years. Ive done a few cedar roofs over the years and enjoy working with them. Cedar siding too.
I got an itch I had to scratch today, so I grabbed a piece of fresh firewood and threw it on the splitter. I split it in half, and again, and again. The pieces are about 1/2" thick, give or take a bit. I know the wood is wet, but they sure are heavy. Maybe that's why they use cedar, to save weight. It's no wonder the old houses are still standing after a storm, they weigh as much as a boulder! I looked at the red pine logs today. Most of them are pretty small, and would barely make 2x4 and 2x6 lumber. There are a bunch in the 6-10" range, and a few bigger than that. All were blown down in a tornado earlier this year. It looks like I could get 16-18" long pieces between the knot rings. There is a lot of wood there, and I would love to haul it all home, but I don't know if it is worth it or not. Sorry, I forgot to take any pictures. They are about 5 miles from my house. The lengths are 8 ft to maybe 20 or 30 ft.
I had quite a summer one year when I was an "out of work" young man with mountain man and hippie tendencies combined. I rented a house on a friends land where I built him a small log cabin and hand rove up masses of cedar shakes for the cabin and several other out buildings using a froe and mallet and a hatchet. Also a draw knife to slightly taper the thicker shingles and shave high spots. I traded work for rent. Here is the cabin and the mountain man (I tell everyone this is the cabin I was born in!). I tend to believe that hand split shakes are thicker and require higher quality bolts. Sawn shingles are much thinner and you have a large percentage of rejects due to knots and splits. Can't tell you which yields more overall. These are just my personal observations.
I was just doing some reading and it seems you get 2-2.5x more from sawn because you are using the wood from one hand split and making two tapered. The wood splitter does a fantastic job of splitting shakes as long as you center the wedge well. It's much faster and easier than using the froe. I have a dead red pine in the yard that needs to come down and I might experiment with that. I could build a milling jig easy enough.
I split up a small pile of shakes from a few pieces of firewood. Nothing real straight, but good enough to see how it worked and looked. The flare on the splitter wedge was sort of a hindrance, but not too bad. I was using the speeco because the wedge is at 90* rather than the swept back wedge of my electric splitter. I will try the electric tomorrow and see if a swept wedge cracks the shakes. My wife came out to see what I was doing and saw the shakes laid out on the deck and got all excited about the project.
Thats cool! Ive read that colonists from the 1700's used white oak for shakes/roofing. Western red cedar shakes are straight split and sawn on the diagonal. Ive done a few shingle roofs, but never a shake one. Guess its on my bucket list as weird as that is!
these were red oak, but I have a white oak log out there too. It's not real straight grain, but I can see how well it splits.
Woodmizer makes a shingle/lap siding attachment for their mills , if I am not mistaken it is around $1800. I have thought about making something to do shingles for my mill , guess it's time to start making.
Yup , I hope to get out back this afternoon and do a little work on the mill. Maintenance and upgrades work , not milling. I have an adjustable blade guide to install the laser line to see what the blade path will be and digital read - out so we know exactly how thick boards will be. Cooler weather is here ( fingers crossed ) so time to get my butt in high-gear. As far as logs = bring it on buddy!! Oh and shingle maker jig-a-ma-thing is now in my R&D department and will be coming soon to a mill near you.
