One night I went to bed dreading the next day. Working solo, I’d be siding the gable end of a house with clapboards, my only helper on the ground cutting and handing me the material. Like magic, the solution to my problem came to me in a dream that night.
As shown in the drawing, I made an S-shaped clip out of a 4-in sq. piece of sheet metal. In use, the top leg of the clip hangs over the prior course of siding, while the bottom leg supports the next course. The arrangement allowed me to get a few nails into each course to keep it aligned before pulling the clip out and moving it up. My “Trip Clip” also proved to be handy for supporting the end of my tape measure over long runs.
Trip Renn, Chapel Hill, NC