Before the roof can go on we need to attach the eave fascia boards which means making some admittedly trendy charred surface wood. Done correctly, this historic Japanese wood-preserving technique is a more labor intensive process than most people have the stamina for, which is why you see so much of it looking not so great after just a few years.
With that in mind, Yakisugi was a hard no for us, until we saw the tiny house built by @mcmustache (pic 2). His light charring creates a lovely deep brown effect that shows just a touch of the red cedar through it. The look is elegant, refined, and we loved it. Brian left his raw but we decided to oil ours with 2 coats of the same Timber Pro coating we’ll be using on the rest of the siding.
I can’t prove this yet but I feel like this will actually have excellent longevity based on my experience seeing what a miniscule amount of ash from wildfires did to my deck railings the same day I happened to be coating with Timber Pro. The Timber Pro/ash combo acted like an oil stain, pulling the ash deep into the wood where it hasn’t changed color in 2 years.
Our process starts by breaking the sharp board edges with a Slickplane (one of my favorite tools) to mitigate the risk of life threatening splinters while wiping with towels. Then we burned the boards just until black working edges first, face last. Then a moderate scrub with a heavy bristle brush and wipe down with a towel so the wood is now dark brown, not black. Then we brushed on a heavy coat of the Timber Pro on all sides and wiped the excess off with towels. Six hours later we applied a second coat.
We make no claims that this is Yakisugi, but the look is exactly what we wanted in a timeframe we can handle.
– Brian
