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Wood roof shingles

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Tomteifi

Tomteifi

Nomad
Jan 22, 2016
294
16
Carmarthenshire, South Wales
Hello all

Hope we are all as well as can be and having a good weekend plus enjoying the various degrees of spring like weather; although its not exactly bajan anywhere at the moment.(other than in Barbados of course!)

I would like to ask, is there anyone on here who makes or, knows someone who makes, wooden roof shingles please? As part of a largish garden workshop
build, I would like to construct a small rainrproof 'forgeport' (that's a carport without a car but with a coal forge.) I know they're on evilbay and other places but most are made abroad somewhere(aren't lots of things these days?) Haven't the inclination or time to make my own really so would like to see the proceeds go to a UK person.(initially it would be for an order in the region of 150/200 pieces.) In addition, if successful, there would also be an order for the workshop roof which will be roughly a 20foot square 'footprint.'

Thanks for looking and all comments, suggestions(apart from d.i.y. and foreign purchases are welcomed.)


cheers

Tom.:thanks:
 
Well, I'm "abroad." Made from western red cedar, we have 2 roofing products.
Shingles which are very thin but wedge-shaped in profile and sawn rather than split.
Shakes which are substantially thicker (1+cm) and split from a 24" tall block of cedar wood.
In both cases, they weather to a fine gray color.

I buy cedar shake blocks for wood carving. Most are 24" tall x 12" x 8".
Must be straight-grained and absolutely knot free. From those, I split the wood
into useful pieces, or manybe just split off dents and blemishes in the surface.
The tools are a big & crude wooden mallet 3-4lbs (a piece of a log,) and a "froe" for the actual split.
An axe is useless as the cut must be made across the entire block, not a little at a time.
Lee Valley sells froes, I had mine made by a blacksmith.

I don't know what you might find available for wood. I don't know anything about how well
the shake-splitting process might work for hardwoods. Cedar is used here as the splits are easy
and the direction is predictable.
 
My parents "cottage" (old Black and White half timber job) in Hereford had a Cedar shingled roof - so someone must make them over here....
 
Hi RV

Thanks so much for your invaluable input here! A good day is when we learn something and I've learned a lot from what you've said. Never heard of a 'shake' in that respect but, I suppose there are connotations in the language. I think I will want shakes rather than shingles(woodwise that is- Lol). 12" x 8" is a goodly sized piece of wood of whatever species these days esp. in the UK.( most living wood in this sort of size and above will have a preservation order on it as most of it has been cut down and not properly replaced.) Its nice that the shakes are split rather than sawn. Obviously making them is very labour intensive(but must be; like splitting slate, very satisfying also.) I have seen what has been purported to be western red cedar which was in truth something completely different(faked) so I don't think I will be buying that. In any case, shakes will last very much longer, be stronger, look altogether better than the cut price shingles!! I've just gone to ebay and looked at some English chestnut wood shingles up for sale and I must say they are pretty skimpy to say the least. The only big crude mallets over here are dressed in suits and try to leech all our hard-earned money from us. I will look at chestnut to see if I can get shakes there. Sorry, when I said 'abroad' I was derogating the eastern Asian countries really; who have most if not all, of our industry and are trying for all our money as well.

Thanks indeed

Tom.
 
Hi John

Ah, the old school eh? Oops, not quite as old as my old self boy! Have you got any further info. at all, at all? Any info at all will be most valued sir.(Put that flute down and stop knitting leather baldrick!) The woody fog is slowly clearing and perhaps after the morning haar has cleared, all will become apparent.

cheers

Tom.
 
Had a peek at the JohnBrash site. Chances are, the shakes come from British Columbia. Sumas, Washington is a stone's toss south of the 49th, the US/Can border.
I buy shake blocks directly from the mill. 24" x 12" x 8" fresh weight about 40lbs and costs me $5 which is a fair price. Some blocks are 24" x smaller but I pay the mill guys $5 each, anyway.

Personally, I like the appearance of the split surfaces of shakes as opposed to the sawn surface of a shingle. The shakes are machine split and the process is really fast. Have seen a fair number of local roofs done with shakes, they do look good.

PacNW WRC logs are usually solid to the very core. If any had rotten cores (which you only discover when cut) they used to be left in the forest as the mills wouldn't accept them.
Then, the shake block cutters discovered that they could cut everything up at 24" paying only salvage grade royalty rates. Dump truck, chainsaw and a splitter and you're in business.
I live in the ICH, the Interior Cedar Hemlock biogeoclimatic zone. Here almost all the WRC is rotten in the core so there's a 3" - 8" shell of wood. That can be split and milled as post & rail decorative fencing and the best of this Grade #4 crap can be cut as shake blocks. The next mill down the same back road cuts things like WRC beams and fence posts so it's fairly efficient shopping. He doesn't care how many knots there are.

Your Post10: Yeah, I'll bet that the shipping cost is obscene.
 
I make cleft shingles (shakes), but have trouble getting suitable material. Because they are split out radially from the centre on the log and then remove the sapwood, you need something of at least 20 inches diameter to make it worthwhile (with oak). It also needs to be dead straight at knot free. Oak butts of this quality reach a premium. I manage a woodland but it is mostly Ash with very little Oak of this grade.

I know some people use smaller diameter sweet chestnut and cleave them laterally (called b**stard shingles) but we don't have much chestnut around here (Gloucestershire). I make shingles for my own use out of Ash as I've got an abundance of it.

In my experience it takes 80-100 shingles per square metre depending on width and they usually cost £1.50-£2 per shingle so its not a cheap roofing material but it does make a stunning roof

I'd love to say I could make them for you but just don't have the timber at the moment. Brian Williamson http://www.westcountrycoppice.co.uk/ manages the coppice at Westonbirt and makes oak shingles. I spoke to him the other week about shingle Oaks and he said they might have some good enough trees being felled this winter. Otherwise there's Coyle Timber products near Bath http://www.coyletimber.com/product/english-oak-shakes/ . Seems like a very reasonable price there. They also do cleft chestnut for slightly less. There may be other suppliers closer to you.

Hope this helps
 
Western Red cedar is the preferred cedar for modern commercial makers primarily because it's just about the only one commercially logged in sufficient quantity. The old timers used whatever cedar grew locally. The biggest reason for using cedar was it's longevity (Naturally resistant to insects and weather) Here's a video showing how they were made back in the day when cabin builders split their own shakes with a fro and a maul: https://youtu.be/007hN3DDMx4
 
Well, I use a maul and a froe. I live in the ICH. 16 years in July.
The modern deal is that these folks in the EU are being crippled by transportation cost for crap WRC wood.
The best suppliers are asking for 1 grade straight grain and knot-free shake blocks and buyers will pay through the nose for that.
I don`t know what to suggest as economical replacement.

Peat has all the sensible answers for you all in the far east.
 
I wonder if anybody there is selling sawn WRC shingles. Uses a lot less wood. Perhaps not as durable as the thicker shakes but quite durable suitable for walls and roofing. Was 50+ years before I needed a new roof on my old summer house. Tearing off the old WRC shingles was an extraordinary mess. Replaced the asphalt shingle roof on this house, certainly got 25+ years out of the old one.

Actually, I was bewildered by the selection of colors when I got the job done last summer. Material and labor, I paid about $3.50/square foot. That's pushing $30 per square meter, about 15BPS.
What with shake blocks 20 minutes down the road, I never gave any consideration to that!
 
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