Timber Cladding / Russwood Architect Select Grade Western Red Cedar
Russwood Architect Select Grade Western Red Cedar is a very high quality selected grade, dried correctly to ensure stability.
Russwood Architect Select Western Red Cedar is straight-grained and virtually free of knots.
Our Architect select represents the best possible Western Red Cedar. Additionally unlike most available WRC cladding we machine it from a full 25mm giving a finished thickness of 21mm, this results in a more stable and durable cladding, which looks stunning.
Its beautiful colour makes it a popular choice, but it is a relatively soft wood that can be easily dented or scraped. If using timber in a high-traffic, low level area where cladding is likely to be subject to these hazards, Sila A/B ® grade of Siberian Larch may be more approriate.
It is referred to as a small movement wood. It is rated as moderately durable and can therefore be used untreated if the sapwood is excluded. BS5589 gives a 60 year service life untreated if sapwood is excluded. It is resistant to preservative treatment.
It has a high tannin content which can be corrosive to iron, and can itself stain badly as a result of any corrosion. It can be left unfinished and will bleach to a particularly attractive lustrous silver-grey.
Technical data
- Wood type - Softwood
- Environmental - Available from well-managed sources.
Distribution - Pacific Northwest coast and interior of British Columbia - Tree - It grows to a height of 45m to 60m with a diameter of up to 2.4m
- Deciduous - and depends upon a long winter rest for the ripening of its wood.
- Timber - The sapwood is narrow and white in colour, and the heartwood is reddish-brown. Western red cedar heartwood is highly impermeable to water and water-borne chemicals. After drying, the wood assumes a reddish-brown tone, but after long exposure to weather the wood becomes silver-grey. The wood is non-resinous, straight-grained, somewhat coarse- textured and exhibits a fairly prominent growth-ring figure. It is soft, rather brittle, aromatic, especially when wet. It is light in weight, about 390 kg/m3 when air dried. Thermal conductivity (k) is 0.11W/m2C at 12% moisture.
- Drying - The wood should be dried to the approximate moisture content it will equilibrate to in service. Thin sizes dry readily with little degrade, but the timber generally tends to hold its moisture at the centre and care is needed with thick stock to avoid internal honey-combing and collapse. The timber holds its position well after drying with practically no tendency to warp and check. Movement due to shrinking and swelling in changing atmospheres is small with excellent dimensional stability.
- Strength - Its light weight and soft timber contributes to low strength properties and compared with European redwood (Pinus sylvestris) it is some 20 to 30% inferior in bending strength, and about 15% less stiff. It is also much less resistant to splitting and indentation on side grain than redwood.
- Working Qualities - Good. The wood takes a variety of coatings, paint and stain, when dried and properly primed. The wood is among the easiest to work with because of its straight grain and uniform texture. It planes and sands cleanly and because of its low wood density it requires little energy to saw or otherwise work. Hot-dipped galvanised or stainless steel nails should always be used with western red cedar cladding because of the materials corrosive qualities.
- Durability - Moderately durable. Western red cedar heartwood is renowned for its high decay-resistance
- Moisture Movement - Small.
- Texture - Coarse
- Use(s) - Cladding, Internal linings.
- Colour(s) - Salmon pink through to reddish brown (Ages to silver grey if left unprotected)
