Shake (shingle)
Encyclopedia
Wood shingle
Wood shingles are roof shingles made of cut wood, used for roofing material. Such roofing material made from split wood is referred to as "shakes"....
that is made from split logs. Shakes have traditionally been used for roofing and siding applications around the world. Higher grade shakes are typically used for roofing purposes, while the lower grades are used for siding purposes. In either situation, properly installed shakes provide long lasting weather protection and a rustic aesthetic, though they require more maintenance than some other more modern weatherproofing systems.
The term shake is sometimes used as a colloquialism for all wood shingles, though shingles are sawn rather than split.
Wood selection
Thuja plicata
Thuja plicata, commonly called Western or pacific red cedar, giant or western arborvitae, giant cedar, or shinglewood, is a species of Thuja, an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae native to western North America...
(Thuja plicata), while in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
and Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
they are more commonly made from pine (Pinus sylvestris). There are various types of shakes, the main differentiating feature between shakes and other types of shingles is that shakes are split while most shingles are saw
Saw
A saw is a tool that uses a hard blade or wire with an abrasive edge to cut through softer materials. The cutting edge of a saw is either a serrated blade or an abrasive...
n on all sides. The sizes also vary from country to country; in North America shakes are usually made in 24-inch lengths - the most common, 18-inch barn shake, or even 48-inch shakes, which are typically used for siding
Siding
Siding is the outer covering or cladding of a house meant to shed water and protect from the effects of weather. On a building that uses siding, it may act as a key element in the aesthetic beauty of the structure and directly influence its property value....
. In Scandinavia shakes, traditionally used only for roofing, are generally smaller than in North America, measuring 13-16 inches long, 4-6 inches wide and 1/8 thick. Likewise wooden shingles are manufactured in differing lengths, in North America, 16-inch, 18-inch and 24 inches.
Both shakes and wooden shingles are typically cut from salvage logs
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
, dead tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s which were left from previous logging operations, or selective logging of dead trees; this depends on area licensing
License
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
.
Log handling and transportation
Logs are typically cut into appropriate lengths using a chainsawChainsaw
A chainsaw is a portable mechanical saw, powered by electricity, compressed air, hydraulic power, or most commonly a two-stroke engine...
, then the "ringers" or cuts are split with an axe
Axe
The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...
into cubes which are small enough to handle, usually 100 to 450 pound
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
s, then stacked on a rope
Rope
A rope is a length of fibres, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. It has tensile strength but is too flexible to provide compressive strength...
. The rope is looped around the stacked wood and the ends passed through an eye spliced in the end. When the running end is pulled it tightens the "sling" rope around the blocks preventing them from falling out. The slings are then flown to a central location where they can be loaded on pallet
Pallet
A pallet , sometimes called a skid, is a flat transport structure that supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, pallet jack, front loader or other jacking device. A pallet is the structural foundation of a unit load which allows handling and storage efficiencies...
s for transport. Previously, swede saws, crosscut saw
Crosscut saw
A crosscut saw is a saw that is specially designed for making crosscuts. A crosscut is a cut made horizontally through the trunk of a standing tree, but the term also applies to cutting free lumber...
s and hand saw
Hand saw
In woodworking and carpentry, hand saws, also known as "panel saws", "fish saws", are used to cut pieces of wood into different shapes. This is usually done in order to join the pieces together and create a wooden object. They usually operate by having a series of sharp points of some substance...
s may have been used to cut the logs, and a froe
Froe
Froes are used in combination with wooden mallets to split timber, to make planks, wooden shingles, or kindling; they are safer and more accurate to use than hatchets because the blade is not swung....
(a heavy blade 24 inches long and three inches wide with a handle at one end perpendicular to the blade) was used to split the ringers. This blade was driven into the wood using a mallet
Mallet
A mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of rubber,or sometimes wood smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head.-Tools:Tool mallets come in different types, the most common of which are:...
, then the wood could be pried apart by pulling on the handle if it would not split by driving the blade in alone.
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
s came into common use for transporting the slings, they were sometimes processed in the bush
The Bush
"The bush" is a term used for rural, undeveloped land or country areas in certain countries.-Australia:The term is iconic in Australia. In reference to the landscape, "bush" describes a wooded area, intermediate between a shrubland and a forest, generally of dry and nitrogen-poor soil, mostly...
and finished, hand-split, shakes were carried out in a pack frame. In steep areas, cables were strung along the slope to form a tight-line or tyrolean. Staples were driven into a block straddling the cable, and the block was slid down the cable to a landing accessible to a boat
Boat
A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...
or truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
.
Cutting
Both shakes and shingles must be edge grainWood grain
In speaking of wood the term grain refers to the alternating regions of relatively darker and lighter wood resulting from the differing growth parameters occurring in different seasons . The term is used in several ways. Perhaps most important is that in woodworking techniques...
cut, to prevent warping and splitting as the wood dries. When splitting blocks and manufacturing shakes or shingles particular care must be taken to consider the orientation of the grain in the wood. Like-wise when bucking, care must be taken to ensure cuts are precisely perpendicular to the grain, to minimize waste and maintain product quality. When bucking, the log must be cleared off well, so the grain can be seen clearly, allowing straight cuts perpendicular to the grain. When splitting, the ringers are typically split from the bark to the heart, perpendicular to the grain. The heart wood is removed by splitting parallel to the grain, and the bark and sap-wood is removed, as well as any imperfections such as rot or bug holes. The initial split is always made on a knot, burl
Burl
A burl or bur or burr is a tree growth in which the grain has grown in a deformed manner. It is commonly found in the form of a rounded outgrowth on a tree trunk or branch that is filled with small knots from dormant buds.A burl results from a tree undergoing some form of stress. It may be caused...
, check or other imperfection, to allow the blocks to made as large as possible while disposing of any waste. The blocks should never be split where there is clear wood, or imperfections will be left in the block; or the block will have to be split too small in the process of removing flaws.
Simple machine
A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force.In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage to multiply force. A simple machine uses a single applied force to do work against a single load force...
s are driven into the face to split off a slab, usually on a natural check or imperfection which runs the entire length of the log. After the face begins to separate, wedges are driven into the resultant opening, starting very near the face and progressively working toward the other end of the log in small steps.
Manufacture of shakes and shingles from block form
Shake blocks are split into 1 inch thick slats called blanks, using either a hydraulic press with a blade attached, called a cuber, or split by hand using a froe and mallet. These blanks are uniform in thickness throughout if split from the same edge without flipping the block. Alternatively, the splitter may flip the block after a blank is taken off each edge, which results in a tapered split from end to end, called tapers or hand-split. The blanks which are not tapered require further processing before application to create this taper, and are run through a large band saw, pushed by hand to cut them from corner to corner forming a tapered shake, sawn on one face.Shingles are cut from the blocks using a circular saw, typically 42-48 inches in diameter. The blocks are clamped in a carriage which slides back and forth across the blade, tilting and moving the block closer to the blade with each pass to automatically form a tapered cut of the correct thickness. The edges of the shingle are then cut with another circular saw called a "trim saw", to remove irregular edges. The result is a tapered shingle sawn on all six sides.
The thickness of the butt, or thicker end of the tapered cut, is usually 3/8 inch thick, but is also commonly made to be 5/8 inch, and can be made to any custom specifications.