Clark Fine Carpentry

The HKC 55 carpentry saw is Festool's general use circular saw. It is a close relative of the company's hallmark track saw, but is optimized for ambidextrous, one-handed operations. This makes it is especially usefull for cross-cutting and rip cutting both wood and ply.

Recently, I have been working towards a distilled approach to the process of milling, or cutting, of wood and wood products. The original Festool track saw was born out of a post-war need to quickly, accurately, and affordably process sheetgoods without the overhead of large shops and equipment. In that sense, it was designed to replace the table saw and miter saw and, with practice, has proven itself capable of such.

This article is part of a series about shingling a gable wall. The first part covers running strait courses from the bottom up. In the future, I will cover initial layout, which is not provided in this article.

The shingles I am using in this article are locally known as “shim stock,” a.k.a. the lowest grade of eastern white cedar. Without getting into the weeds regarding how suppliers esoterically classify wood products, suffice it to say that they are charmingly rough and not in the least bit square. But, with somewhat careful installation and the acceptance of a varied look (or even a penchant for it), they can look quite handsome.

Back when I was a new finish carpenter working for Precision Interiors in Denver, Colorado, my beginer's mind was blown one morning by my good friend and and field supervisor, Ian. We were trimming out a custom home with knotty alder (affordable back then, scant nowadays) and were almost done. But, we were about 12' shy of finishing the baseboard and the cost of procuring more from the millwork company was big. And so, as a talented man with a formal education in furniture making, Ian decided we would make our own.

A nail-down cedar deck with galvanized cut nails and boiled linseed oil finish.

cedar nail-down deck

morning mindset

on edge, in place...