# board and batten dims?



## leftyfretguy (Jan 2, 2008)

HI, 
I am building an engine house and plan to simulate board and batten siding but have never paid attention to the stuff before! How wide are the boards typically. Will a scale 7.5" wide look too big? How far apart are the boards spaced? 
thanks, 
Matt


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## Dean Whipple (Jan 2, 2008)

Matt, typically the boards are 1"x 12" and the batts are 1"x 2"


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## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

That should look fine you could even go wider. Older board and batten buildings had boards up to a foot wide since such lumber was readily available. Anything smaller starts to look busy. 

-Brian


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## John R (May 17, 2008)

In Western Australia we had a Timber building Mode called 
Weatherboard Construction, Planks were 6" to 7" wide and around 
1" thick, very fashionable around 1900 circa, Some are still in use today and as strong as ever, I`ve built a couple over time 
{years} and they look good. By the way, each plank overlaps the 
plank above!. 
John.


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## R.W. Marty (Jan 2, 2008)

Matt, 
Board & batten siding can be almost anything but as stated the smaller sizes start to look pretty busy. 

At the turn of the century most all lumber used for things like engine houses and sheds/shacks was full dimension (unsurfaced or planed). 1 X 12 was probably the most common but have seen as much as 1 X 16 used. Most battens for these larger board sizes seemed to be 1" X 3 or 4 inch. 

Most boards were nailed on leaving a 1/2 or even 1 inch space between them to allow for swelling of the wood as it absorbed rain. This space accounts for the use of wider battens. 

Some buildings were sided with boards nailed up with no spacing and it was easy to tell after they absorbed some water and swelled popping the battens loose. 

On structures like houses etc. where the siding would be well cared for (painted) a surfaced board was usually used. For cost reasons an S1S or an S3S board was used for the board and an S3S for the batten. But even here a careful carpenter would leave a slight space between boards for some expansion. This would also allow the use of a narrower batten which would look better on a smaller or more refined structure. 

Oh yea, The S- 1,2,3,or 4 -S refers to the surfacing or planing of the rough cut board. As in; S1S would be a rough cut board with one side surfaced, usually one of the wide sides. The more sides surfaced on a board the more expensive it was. An S4S board is like the lumber you see at the Home Depot now days. Surfacing all 4 sides as became the norm today, it also is a smaller cut than in the old days. 

Just my 2 cents. 
Rick Marty


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