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Renovating an old farmhouse (in AR) and plan on siding it with cypress clapboards and trim from a local source; the finish will be a solid color stain on ALL sides. The wood will be rough cut and then milled to give a smooth side. My question is should this lumber be dried or not? I want to prevent any splits. (Wanted to get some comments before I do a little test.)
toodles
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Dave - you can buy a moisture meter for around 100 bucks. If you are going to want professional results, and you're using lumber that you are getting from a local mill, I think it would be a good investment.
Someone else will know better than I about cyprus, but I've always been told that framing lumber should be 20% or less and interior trim should be closer to 8% moisture content.
If you are not going to kiln dry this material, sticker it - flat and straight - and the rule I have always followed for air drying is 1 year for every inch thickness of the lumber. Again, your moisture meter will come in handy here and I have never worked with cypress.
*Dave,Cypress shrinks alot as it dries. I would never install it wet. I would not stain it wet either. I use alot of cypress down here in La.KK
*Dave,Is this "tidewater" or "sinker" cypress? If so, good luck getting it dry enough to be stable. We just did what they call a "great room" of beams and paneling with that stuff and it shrunk like crazy. However, the customer (from New Orleans), requested this species and wanted that effect. If you're buying "white" cypress it's probabaly klin dried and you should be OK.Ed. Williams