Building with green wood

[Pat]

I have been talking to some folks about building with green wood. A friend is building a pole barn and he and I have been cutting timber to feed a local mill and get dimensional lumber for stringers and siding. I have been told that if you nail/screw the vertical siding to the horizontal stringers only on the mid line of the siding that when it shrinks it won't be pulled apart as it would if you nailed on both sides of the centerline. We will be using 1x6 full sized rough sawn oak planks for siding. I have no experience with this and wonder if anyone has a clue as to how bad the planks might warp.

We intend to attach battens over where the siding planks touch to cover the inevitable gaps that will form between siding planks due to shrinkage. I don't know how much shrinkage to expect but we were thinking of using 2 inch wide battens and expect that to cover the gap. We will fasten the battens to the stringers not to the siding planks. We don't need a perfect waterproof joint as we are building a barn not a boat. My friend has his poles temporarily set (Eastern Red Cedar logs, Juniperus Virginii) and does the final set as he adds stringers and bracing.

We have been playing Paul Bunyan in his woods as I haven't the trees to spare but he has at least 80 acres of woods and has offered me 1/2 of what he and I harvest with the expectation of getting enough lumber to build each of us a pole barn. I haven't decided whether I will use oak for siding or painted steel siding and will be casting piers in place protruding a foot or so above grade to which I will attach the poles. I have less confidence in the anti-rot characteristics of the red colored heart wood of the cedar than my friend.

We harvested a significant number of board feet of hickory and ended up with several 2x6 hickory beams. I'm not familiar with hickory as a structural wood. I am more familiar with it as tool handles, source of flavorful smoke, and an interesting wood for cabinetry and other woodworking projects. Would we be safe in using hickory beams 10ft or longer? If it is questionable I can resaw the beams and use them for decorative projects and harvest more oak for structural beams.

Any insight into problems we should be aware of or suggestions we might profit from, feel free to advise and comment.

Anyone have experience in working with green lumber and have an idea about what we should expect? IT makes me a tad nervous to press ahead into an area where I have little or no experience and the consequences of failure are not trivial.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

Pat:
This site should answer your questions.


http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_bas..._Handbook.html

For the very little I know green wood has little shrinkage longitudanlly but abou 20/30 % ??? radially depending on the species and moisture content when cut. The type of cut will also affect shrinkage with quarter sawn having the least.

For structural strength look google for a table. I'm sure Hickory would do quite well.

The method of assembly you describe should allow for shrinkage /expansion without cracking stresses.

Mr. Concrete and Mr. exterior Robinson screws would be my choice as well as Mr. steel siding.

If livestock see the interior a minimum of 2x6 may be required for about four/five feet high to act as the hoof rest.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Egon, Thanks for the URL. One site I browsed gave me the impression that the worst shrinkage with oak was about 10%.

I will be looking up pix of the oak species leaves and bark as we cut a lot of red oak and would have preferred white which was less than 1/3 of our harvest. If we can get enough white the red may just get stickered and await a later date when I am trying my hand at furniture making, We took two loads to the mill today and one last Friday. Todays logs were all overhanging one or both ends of my trailer (18'3") one was about 26ft and a couple others at 24ft.

We cut off the little ends at about 14 inches in diameter. This will make a lot of firewood which is handy since I may put a wood stove in the tractor shed adjacent to my shop and enclose it as an annex to the shop to gain an additional 21 by 48 ft floor space and ease my crowded working conditions.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

Gary, can you beleive Pat? Crowded working conditions??? [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Sounds like nice oak Pat. Wish I had a bunch like that.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Egon, I flailed about on a few sites and printed out some ID guides including pix of leaves so now maybe I can ID a white oak better than I tell the difference between walnut, pecan, and hickory which is to look on the ground and see what the nuts are. The leaves are sure a lot alike to the neophyte.

We got a bunch of hickory sawed up into 2x6, 2x4, , 1x4, and 1x6. I may set some aside and resaw it after it dries a bunch to get some furniture grade stock or if we run short (out run the mill) we can just use it for barn construction.

I have always heard that painting green wood was an iffy business. Anyone have experience with that?

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

Again I speak from a very limited knowledge base --- stain of wood may be prefferable to a coat of paint which may act as a barrier for water vapour and allow rot to set in.??

Unfinished weathered option???

I also spent some time looking at leaves and needles for tree identification. It worked but for the most part after a year or so the memory failed. I now depend on the three category method, leaves, needles or dead. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Egon, The siding (vertical 1x6 oak planks with 2 inch battens over the "seams" would only be painted on the outside of the barn so the wood could dry from the unpainted interior surface. If that is a problem then I guess it could be stained and then painted later in a year or two. I will have to do more research on coatings for green wood.

Unfinished weathered is not an option for me and I think my friend, Red, intends to at least coat the outside of his. Due to the proximity to the house I will try to color coordinate the barn to the house, attempting to match the gray vinyl siding (current leading candidate plan.) Runner up plan is the traditional red barn with white trim and white diagonal bracing on the doors.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Pat]

...and this just in from my email request to Behr...

Thank you for contacting Behr.

We do not have a product line that will fill these particular needs. For this project it would be best to do an internet search in order to locate a manufacturer that produces products that can be used for this type of project

Now isn't that just special!!!

Pat

[Cliff_Johns]

If you're trying to minimize warping and splitting, then you need to finish more than just the outside.

Serious warping usually comes from poor sawing or from finishing only one side of the wood. One sided finishing causes uneven drying which causes cuping. As the wood dries, it shrinks. If the inside drys faster than the outside, then the board will cup and pop the center nailed nails right out. If you've used screws, many of the boards will split down the middle trying to push out the screws.

To prevent end splitting over time, coat the ends of each board you install with a heavy oil or paint. Since wood loses moisture from the end grain the fastest, green boards will split at the ends if the ends aren't treated to preclude rapid moisture loss. This is true even if you don't finish inside or out.

Quality sawing (and at the right time of the year) will reduce all these affects. Also, this kind of problem is species based.

Another solution is to air dry the wood for about a year per inch of thickness, then it will not move as much with seasonal changes as it will with that initial drying.

Cliff

[Pat]

Thanks Cliff, It is good to remember the basics. I'll have to take a look at the outbuilding my friend built with the green oak. I suspect he will have lots of split boards because he didn't restrict nailing to the centerline of his vertical siding planks.

Pat