Wood Choice Selection

I believe Western Red or Alaskan Yellow Cedar would work just fine. The bonus is Cedar will take the paint real nice and last for 15 years.Try here

http://vixenhill.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=_shutter_landing

-- Cedrus of British Columbia

Cedrus’s advice sounds good. Redwood is also an option.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

A couple years ago I made Victorian window casings for the outside of the windows. Clear cedar was critical to avoid splits, cracks, and problems while routing the edges. Two coats of exterior primer and one coat of top paint have kept them looking good. Also caulking all seams prior to painting helped.

I patched a friend’s siding with non-clear cedar because she didn’t want to shop for clear cedar. It cracked within a month, and admits water inside the siding.

-- Rich, Seattle, WA

I agree with Cedar

Thanks for the feedback. I was leaning towards cedar, but wasn’t sure how it took paint.

-- Ezra in Brew City

not sure if you can get it up north, but cypress works good too. It’s doesn’t rot. down here, they used to build house out of it, especially in south louisiana. and alot of the time it’s left unfinished, just to age naturally. We built my dad’s barn out of it 4 years ago. It’s barely lost any color in that time, just a little graying.

-- Joey, Magee, Ms http://woodnwaresms.com

I know an architectural wood worker that uses Spanish cedar for all of his exterior doors and windows. It paints real well. (prime first)

-- Tim -- http://tmuli.com

I know that it is sacrilegious to say on a woodworking site, but if you are going to paint, there are a lot of products made from plastics that machine beautifully, last forever, resist rot forever, and cost much less.

-- making sawdust....