Anyone used it or even seen it lately?
The reason I ask is I just repaired a 20 yr old deck that has 5/4 x 6 clear redwood decking. I replaced about 200 lf. of damaged decking.
We ended up using 5/4 cedar decking, because of the high cost or unavailability of redwood. The lumber yard guy quoted me about $6 a lf for clear cedar decking, so we just went with standard cedar (small knots) decking.
I did salvage some of the redwood decking that was just rotted on the ends, and ran it through the planer and it looks pretty good.
The last time I remember using clear redwood was in 99′ replacing hail damaged bevel lap siding, and it was getting pretty scarce and expensive back then. I remember seeing finger-jointed redwood fascia quite a while ago too.
Anyone been using clear redwood or any redwood lately?
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I haven't used redwood since I moved east in 88
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We used it on this addition in 86'. All clear redwood siding and corner boards. There is a clear 2 x 12 rim banding around it. Ouch, would that be expensive now!
still common here....
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It must be a regional thing. Do you mean clear redwood, and how much is 5/4 x 6 decking a ft?
we use clear as trim and heart as 2x...
and there is construction grade...
not much 5/4....
current pricing will have to wait till Monday...
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a lot of us have taken to using redwood in lieu of ACQ...
I add a layer of Vycor for direct contact to CC... some others do too...
we have clear, select and construction grades along with clear and select heart.....
both woods come in 1x, 2x, T&G, beveled and ship lap...
perhaps it's simply available because there is a demand for it...
a lot of cedar is used too in in red and white, rough, 1s and 4s...
all in clear, select and shall we say... "other"....
all of both go with all of the log cabin up here....
most if not all is from Oregon...
dunno if the BB's carry it.... but most of the local yards do...
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The redwood must cost alot more than than the ACQ, probably alot straighter though. The Vycor is a good idea for the CC, but you cant use anything like PL premium for gluing it then right? Ive never seen redwood at a BB around here, and not much at the lumberyards either.
skip the Vycor if you use the PL-P... the PL-P will form a barrier on it's own...
the redwood is straigher and specialized fastners and hardware aren't needed....
and you are familiar with the corresiveness of ACQ...
not an issue with Redwood...
so now think in terms of cost....
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http://thelumberbaron.com/
I haven't been there in awhile. They will fax you a price list so you can compare.
Last used it in 1991 or so. Cedar is an Alternative but I don't think clear all heart Cedar is as rot resistant as Clear all heart Redwood. Just another sign of the times I guess. When I lived on the west coast there was the attitude that the big mills would promote that they'll simply plant more trees than they cut and the supply will last forever.
That attitude brought about a profound amount of waste. In the house i lived in the entire house was framed with clear redwood.
I guess we found out the hard way. Old Growth Redwood is just about extinct and what is left is in a handful of reserves in Northern CA and Oregon. The stuff they replanted are will take hundreds if not thousands of years to become anything close to what we once had.
The trees clear cut down the road was replanted with cedar. The companies know the rot resistant prime woods will bring more. This is on the central Oregon coast, 600 feet from the ocean.
Still the replanted stuff will never be anywhere near the quality of old growth. I think partly what gives the better quality Cedar and Redwood of the old days was the consistency in the growth rings that were defined by early and late growth. These days by the nature of the tree farming methods used early growth rings in a tree are usually 1/4" wide or more which makes for fairly flimsy material.
You are so right about the rings. We need a silviculturists to tell us why the growth rings are so different now . Anybody know why , I know they are planting faster growing (volume) trees because they are selecting the best (in their minds) and propagating those. If you look at a bunk of lumber there is a pretty good difference in the end grain. You may see different in your area , but thats what I see. And the amount of wane in a 2x6 is rediculous....it would barely make a 2x4...do you guys get the same? Geez I only live 1000 feet from a clear cut forrest on the Oregon coast and cant get decent lumber.
atrident
I buy hardwood cheaper than structural lumber (like 2x4's ) A typical hardwood 2x4x8' costs a buck so I use it.. not only is is stronger but because it's grows wild it fights for survival and produces tight growth rings like old growth wood used to..
Actually much of my house is built with old growth wood because it takes at least a hundred years to grow a white oak to marketable size we aren't talking about plantaTION GROWN ANYTHING.. Most wood that is harvested comes from farmers wood lots and darn few of those have any time to do the required work it would take to maximise the yield of their woodlot..
As a result the growth rings are tight.
Edited 9/20/2008 9:35 pm ET by frenchy
My house is framed with redwood and that helps explain why it's so hard to find anymore. The few old growth that are left look better as trees anyway. To get nice redwood these days you need to know somebody at a mill for when a good tree from a private seller comes in. The newer generations are a pale shadow of the old forest wood - a good portion of which burned in the 1905 S.F. quake & fire and then another to rebuild it.
You'll soon learn if you study it, that "slow'' grown Oak is actually less desireable in most ways. The lack of significant differential between early and late wood , or diminished quantity of the early wood, creates a condition known as "Brash".
Brash oak fractures much more readily, and lacks the springy-ness of faster , open grown oak. It also can lack the dramatic "cathedral grain" characteristics that make flat sawn Oak so appealing to some. Too little variance makes for a dull look.
While the 'slow, old' gets tossed around it is 180 degrees the opposite desireablity between Deciduous and Coniferous species.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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"While the 'slow, old' gets tossed around it is 180 degrees the opposite desireablity between Deciduous and Coniferous species."I think that is true to some extent when speaking of the structural qualities. Even so it would appear that the structural capacities of old growth lumber are well within acceptable ranges and as far as rot resistance goes old growth is definitely superior to plantation grown material in any type of wood. I point to gothic cathedrals with wooden roofs, old barns and houses, etc. all framed many moons ago that have withstood the test of time. As a furniture maker I prefer the consistency of old growth material over material with wider growth rings. Some may prefer the wild cathedrals of plain-sawn Oak but I think most furniture makers would agree those graphic attributes can be visually distracting to a piece.
I can agree with most of that.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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Atrident,"Old Growth" is essentially "Slow Growth" due to intense competition for light, water and nutrients in a crowded forest. "Old Growth" trees can be described as "suppressed" by "dominant" trees that shaded them and draw more water and nutrients.The result is tight growth rings, and denser wood with less knots, that is more stable, etc.A couple of weeks ago I bought this 2x4. It resembles "Old Growth" but it is not really. It is a Lodgepole pine, a species that often out does itself in the reproduction game. The result is incredibly crowded groups of trees known as "doghair" stands. The overcrowding results in wood with growth rings that look like old growth, though the tree grew in just the last 100 years or so.
Clear redwood today is a far cry from what was available 15 years ago. I try to avoid it whenever possible, going with manufactured materials or Ipe instead. I have also had occasion to use reclaimed old growth douglas fir on some outdoor projects and have been really pleased with both the aesthetics and the durability. Doug fir from 100 year ago (a lot of the wood I have been buying is from 1900'ish structures) is fantastic to work with, has really tight growth rings, and is very stable.
I didnt know Doug fir was a exterior grade wood. On the same project, I replaced some Doug fir siding that was rotted around the bottom 4 courses of an old early 1900's garage. It was a 4" T & G siding, beveled with a rabbet on top. I had the replacement siding milled out of cedar, thinking it would hold up better than the fir. I only needed about 100' and with set-up, cost $300.
First time around I admit it was a gamble, but with careful preparation, good joinery, and absolutely no ground contact old growth doug fir holds up really well. I should add that climate is no doubt a factor, here in the SF Bay Area we're pretty mild so that works in my favor.
I haven't bought from them for eight years now, but Bear Creek Lumber, Winthrop, WA, offers redwood. Here is a clip from their current website.
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And they ship lumber packages all over the U.S., maybe even to Canada, too.
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Edited 9/20/2008 2:41 pm ET by Gene_Davis
Gene, Thanks to you and sawduster for the websites. I didnt know there were that many grades of redwood. I am going to check the prices, and keep them for a reference. The shipping might be a dealbreaker though, if you needed a lot.
Bear Creek deals with builders and with savvy homeowners doing their own build. A package from them is typically a quarter-truckload of stuff or more. You would not shop Bear Creek for that needed for just a small pergola, for example.
The first buy I made from them came on a truck, and my load was the first to come off. The other packages on board were going to Maine and Delaware.
They ship all over the U.S., and have good deals with lumber haulers. Everything they sell is Pacific NW stuff, or lumber products from up BC and Alaska way.
If you think about it this way, the shipping cost may make sense to you. All the redwood, western red cedar, douglas fir, and Alaskan cedar specialties you can get at your local source, have baked into the price the cost it took to truck it to you.
The Bear Creek people are wonderful, and you will enjoy doing business with them.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
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I live in Humboldt County and during the course of my travels regularly see the log decks of three mills that collectively supply, my guess, 75%+ of the redwood commercially available. The logs are looking particularly sad these days - just about any tree of size that isn't protected in parks has been cut down. These days scoring true, old-growth, clear heart is the equivalent of a big-game hunt - affordable only to the few for whom price is no object, rare and prized.
That so many have written in about how easily it was obtained not that long ago is a testament to the thorough destruction of such an amazing resource over a stunningly short period of time.
Wood4rd,
I've been replacing sections of my houses 55 year old redwood siding for the last 4 years. Still pretty easy to get in California. There are lumber yards here that sell just redwood.
10 years ago, we used nothing but clear RW for exterior trim and siding. Now we never use it. Now what we get in KY is mostly farmed sap wood and it's expensive as hell. We do, however get good cedar, so that's replaced the redwood.
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My dad was a Seabee in WW2 and said all they used was boatloads of clear redwood.
I live in NW OR and have not seen redwood for 20 years in a lumberyard.
Strange when i was in jersey in the 60s and 70s we used redwood all the time for decks, Went to OR and saw very little.
No redwood in Oregon? That is like no spuds in Idaho.