reusing cedar shingle siding

[MikeT]

A while back I asked about using a cementitious fiber siding that I heard about from my colleagues at Reed College who are residing an old building on campus with this product and taking off the old cedar shingles.  Well one of the comments from John Raabe lamenting about not using an original material got me thinking about the possibility of re-using the shingles from the building on campus on my beach house project.

I inquired and worked out a deal to salvage usable shingles from this building  (I was at the mercy of the college's subcontractors to be as careful as possible).  My wife and I loaded my 8' x 10' trailer about four feet high with nice, wide cedar shingles.  The widest are about 16" wide and the narrowest about 4".  About half are the wide ones.  These shingles are also 18" tall.  The exposed relief of the shingles (about 8") have been stained a dark brown.  

As I said, the shingles are in good shape.  I had a historic preservation architect look at them while they were still on the building and commented that there was no reason that they couldn't be re-used.

So here are my questions:

- Is it possible to stain over a dark (presumably oil based stain) and achieve another color?  My guess is  not easily, but I thought I would see what folks thought.

- What do you think about turning the shingles over and staining the back side and using that as the new exposure?  It would have to be somewhat dark as some of the backside's had stain leak onto them.

As always, your thoughts are appreciated.

mt

[John_M]

I don't have a lot of knowldege about them, but I don't think it would hurt to experiment with  few different stains on either the front or back of the shingles to see what happens.

Most high quality paint stores (not the big box types like Lowes or Home Depot) will stand behind their high quality products like Sikkens for example.

Bring a few of the shingles in and they will more than likely put their product on your shingles right their in front of you so you can see what they look like.  They won't charge you for this, they want your business.  If you are honest with them, they will take good care of you.

Just my thoughts!!  Good luck!!  

[glenn-k]

Great on the usable shingles - or shakes?

I think John M said it well -- just check it out.