Hello all, Going to do board & batten siding using rough sawn lumber. When you guys get the lumber from the mill, do you stick it to let it dry for a while, or put it right up on the structure ? Also, do you ever plane one side of the board to take off some of the 'roughness' on the side of the board facing out? (I know this defeats the purpose of 'rough-sawn'..).
Thank you for your time.
Don't have to sticker it, but you'll want to compensate for the greater degree of shrinkage by setting the boards fairly close, so as they contract, they reveal from under the battens.
Best barns hereabout have reasonably narrow ~8" boards with a single nail top and bottom, so they didn't split as they dried. Rip through the center to avoid cup.
I might consider skip-planing on rotary cut, but bandmills make a surface that shouldn't produce splinters by casual contact.
I did a board & baton house about 10 years using 10-12 inch pine boards with
4 inch batons. These boards were kiln dried already so I didn't worry trying to dry them anymore. I used 3 nails across on every board. I also oiled them with a mixture of NEW motor oil and kerosene, 3 to 1. All the boards were rough sawn both sides. I was told by some old timers not to plane anything as it changed the look and also promoted rotting. The rotting part didn't make any sense to me but still didn't do it because I wanted the rough look. The house still looks good.Bryan
When you buy rough cut lumber from a saw mill it can be at varying degrees of dryness. Unless you have a handy-dandy moisture meter it is going to be hard to determine what it is, unless you do the old method of determining moisture content yourself by cooking the sample for 1 hour at 350 degrees. If I was doing a big project with lots of siding I would probably purchase the moisture meter if I were you.
I would not put it up green. I would at least air dry it. To air dry it I would sticker it. Place your stickers 24 inches apart and directly over each other. I would also paint the ends of the boards to prevent them from checking at the ends. The boards will dry faster through the end grain.
Now there is a trick in stickering boards correctly. If you are using pine then I have to tell you, I have no experience air-drying pine. I have lots of experience in air-drying cherry. When we would sticker the cherry we would be very careful not to use PINE STICKERS. The pine, combined with moisture used to cause sticker stain on the boards. This was especially true during the summer months. We would rip plywood to one inch and use these to sticker with no problem with staining. But, if you are actually trying to dry pine, I don't know what will happen. I am sure there are tons of guys here who can answer that.
As far as planing one side. I would not do that. The rough cut surfaces acts as a barrier for moisture leaving the board. If you plane one side, that one side will be able to release its moisture at a higher rate than the other side. This could cause the wood to "Cup." I would leave both sides rough.
If this is to be used on a barn or something, I would wait until the lumber is around 13%, which is about all you can hope from air-drying unless you have a nice barn with a huge loft that acts like a kiln. Kiln dry lumber is
8 to 10 % moisture content. You probably don't want it to be kiln dried to be used outside because it is just going to take on moisture anyway. Wood moves across the grain, so it might push against the other boards as it expands.James
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