Diamond pattern w/ cedar shingles
davidmeiland
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
Can anyone point me to photos and/or details on how to “inlay” a diamond pattern into an otherwise straight-course cedar shingle sidewall? There was one on a house I used to walk past in our old neighborhood, and I should have taken a photo. Basically, it was about four feet tall, a couple of feet wide, and appeared to be done with shingles with diamond ‘points’ cut into their ends. I can find diamond cut shingles on the web (and all kinds of other patterns) but no good photos to let me know how to go about it.
Replies
I searched for "Roger Dumas". He posted some pics here a while back of fish shapes (I think it was fish) in his shingles. I came up with this link, but I bet you could find some more involved stuff linking with his name.
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&msg=1047.1&maxT=14
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&msg=4639.276
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&msg=4639.296&search=y
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&msg=25034.1&search=y
I think Mike Guertin did an article about this matter in the past few years. That would probably be mentioned in the links.
Hope this helps.
Jon Blakemore
PBS stations here recently were running a show (titled "Building a Dream") about the Norwegian stave church built in Moorhead, MN. They showed the diamond pattern shingles being cut and installed.
You might check listings to see if it's going to run in your area.
Diamond pattern isn't hard. Cut all your shingles the same width. Cut all the butt ends to a symmetrical point at whatever angle you choose. (All the shingles in a course should probably use the same angle, but you could vary the angle between courses if you like.) Offset each course one half shingle width horizontally from the one below it. Voila, diamond pattern!
Some of the other patterns, like the flying duck pattern, are trickier.
What I want to do is a diamond-shaped section in a field of standard shingles. I think the shingles in the feature area are the pointed ones you describe, but I'm not sure. If they are, the question is how to transition from the regular shingles to the diamonds... and back.
I don't know how the pro's do it, but I suspect it involves some shingles with only one side of the point cut off and some half width shingles on top of them to make a clearly defined vertical line at the edge of the patterned field. Try cutting points on some yellow sticky notes, lay them out and see what you come up with.
david..... the.. ratio of the diamond depends on the coursing .. the number of shingles you use.. the width of the individual shingles....those are the 3 variables
we do a cardboard mockup.. with the various choices.. then cut all the pieces and dry lay them on the ground.. then nail them up.... the main trick is at the half-way point.. the left and right shingles do a little tricky jog..
here's a series of the process..
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Mike, that's real cool stuff there. Question...when ya terminate at the rake soffit and course down the rake, what do you do for a transition (for lack of a better word) at the birdbox ( my term for a soffit return) and corner?..another pic might be in order..Thanx Duane
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Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
duane.. happy to oblige..
here's the guts... and the finish... and down below on the flat soffits we use a 7/8 J-mold and tuck the tips into the J..
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
duane.... here's some more.. another diamond..
and roger's famous striper..
and some whimsy i saw in town..
and a fat footing shingled to hide it....Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
your work is awsome im getting into alot of cedar now and your work is insparational thanx
Thanx Mike, those soffit returns are way cool, I am not using cedar shingles but wanted to do something different than all the other returns I have done..that is just cool, not seen aroend here at all. The other thing I am doing is, being as the birds are nesting all over my place, I am actually building cleanable nest boxes in a few areas..what the heck, they gotta live somewhere.!!..
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Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Mike,
Thanks for the excellent pics. That's exactly what I was looking for. Your finish work looks great and I hope you're charging plenty for it.
Quiestion 1: is the diamond area 'double coursed', i.e. the diamond cut shingles laid on top of straight shingles? OR, is the diamond area laid into the courses of straight shingles. From the photos it looks like there are straight shingles laid under the diamonds. If not, it seems like you'd have to cut some very special shingles with straight butts and tapered edges to form the perimeter of the diamond. Also, do you recall the 'angle' of your diamond? Looks like maybe 30 degrees from plumb or thereabouts?
Question 2 for anyone willing to comment: in your opinion would this look good on a wall that has alternating wide & narrow exposures. Odd courses are 5.5" exposure, even courses are 2.5" exposure. Of course this would complicate the cutting of the diamonds quite a bit, but for the moment assume I have the time and patience.
DM
david.. take out some scissors and start cutting.. you'll see how it goes together..
the bottom point goes on top of a regular course.... the next row goes on top of the course below.. the only difference is they each drop whatever the exposure is ( 5" )..
the angle depends on what you pick.. if you use a 5" course and each shingle is 5" wide.. that determines the angle.. change the width... you change the angle.. change the exposure, you change the angle..
the size of the diamond is determined by the number of courses...
you can freehand plan this with a piece of paper...
this diamond is 7 courses high... the other one i mocked up was 8 courses high
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Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore