History of the Shinglewood Corner
History of the corner shingle and Opening the Shinglewood Sawmill
By: Paul Johnson
Shinglewood Sawmill was opened in 2021 by Paul Johnson. Paul’s dream was to bring an incredibly useful, long-forgotten building product of Canada to the market in the USA. It all started when Paul and his uncle Ted, age 79, drove up Maine together to visit Ted’s longtime friend Harold Roy, age 79. Both Ted and Harold were looking for new projects to stay busy. Paul, age 33, was in the midst of reinventing his career.
The three men did not know at the time that each of them held one of the three vital characteristics of a successful new business. Harold, the visionary entrepreneur, saw a gap in the market for the product; Ted, the specialist, implemented the vision, making it a reality by creating a factory to produce the product. All the managers got things done, keeping the vision on track and the quality right. This social visit up Maine turned into what Shinglewood Sawmill is today.
The three successful business entrepreneurs met together for the first time; conversations led to a past invention Harold and Ted had tried: a specialized shingle mill that made solid corner shingles.
In the 1970s Harold wanted a method to finish corners of a shingled structure faster than using the traditional method of weaving or the lazy method of butting them up against a corner trim board. Both of these old methods make the structure easily penetrable to exterior elements due to gaps in the siding coverage. The weaving method is extremely time-consuming to install and results in a weak, unreliable corner that has a high installation cost. Deterioration of the structure and a slow loss of architectural appeal.
As a master carpenter of 40-plus years, Harold says the trim board method of butting shingles against two boards on the corner is an unprofessional, shoddy practice, which showcases no professional carpentry workmanship and results in a poor final product.
Harold wanted to eliminate these problems by making a shingle that is fast to install, long-lasting, and more efficient on corners. To do this he had to come up with a way to continue the shingle pattern across one wall, past a corner, and onto the adjacent wall without interrupting the overlapping shingle pattern. It also had to keep the uniform architectural appearance and cut down on installation time.
With these goals in mind, Harold came up with a shingle mill that produces a solid one-piece corner shingle. This is where Harold’s friend Ted came into the picture. Ted has 50-plus years or engineering experience, which was crucial to create the manufacturing process. The two invested together to create what is known as the Roy Mill, named after Harold Roy, its creator.
At that time Paul was not born yet. Harold and Ted had an excellent invention but no experience in marketing the product to make sales. The solid corner shingles they did sell were a huge hit with contractors.
The ingenuity of the product was soon heard about from a large cedar shingle manufacturer in Canada. This resulted in a rental agreement for the Roy Mill with the Canadian shingle manufacturing company for nine years, from the 80s through the 90s. During that time Harold continued as a master carpenter, and Ted went on as an engineer. When the lease was up on the Roy Mill, it returned to Harold’s barn in Maine, worn out from years of use producing solid corner shingles on homes across Canada. The Roy Mill lay outside and unused for many years until the day Ted and Paul came to visit Harold, who happened to think he had the mill’s hydraulic pump running again.
At this time Harold and Ted still agreed the product is amazing, but how do we get it to the customers? They were two men with a combined 100 years of entrepreneurial success but no new-age computer-savvy marketing experience.
The Roy Mill screening, groaning and buzzed, popping out corner shingles, the two men watched with pride as the old mill went through its paces. Harold and Ted saw Paul take to the controls of the old mill to see if shingles would come out cleaner if he adjusted some of the angles and slowed it down a little. It did! Paul caught on quickly, making a few minor adjustments, removing the screeching and groaning to get the mill buzzing out corner shingles smoother than it had in over 40 years. Not having planned this fun day of getting the mill working again, the three men ran out of cedar to mill, ending the fun all too soon.
They covered up the mill and went out to lunch together, where the discussion led to Paul taking the mill to see what he could do with it. Paul accepted the idea, and the three men came up with a plan. They would meet up again up Maine, at Harold’s, in one month. By that time Harold could make room in the barn to prep and finish shingles, and Ted and Paul could travel and locate 400 feet of cedar wood to put the mill through a good-quality test. A month later the three met at Harold’s, and the test resulted in piles of corner shingles sparking Paul’s dream of a possible home business working with his hands. Paul’s dream developed into bringing this incredible, useful, long-forgotten building product of Canada to the market in the USA.
Paul opened Shinglewood Sawmill in Maine. This location is situated close to the white cedar and Pine wood supply of Maine and close to coastal properties, which use shingles and cedar products for their superior protection from salty seacoast elements. Inland Maine is also an area with few jobs available. Paul’s hopes were also to provide more jobs for local residents as Shinglewood Sawmill grew.
The solid corner shingles manufactured by Shinglewood Sawmill make the installation process incredibly fast and easy. Installation requires no cutting, no trimming, and no finishing. This makes it easy for even the “do-it-yourself” homeowners to use and get the architectural look of a weaved corner that a master carpenter would spend hours on.
Over time the weaved corners of a wood-shingled building start to separate, curling open at the corner seam. Much onsite work goes into constructing woven corners. Our manufactured solid corner shingles encase the building’s corner, creating a seal that is comparable to the overlapping protection quality of flat shingles. It gives complete coverage around the corner, leaving no seams or cracks directly to the inner structure. Our manufactured solid corner shingles eliminate the need for onsite construction of shingles, making the job of the master carpenter possible for any “DIY” homeowner. This not only reduces installation time for a contractor but allows contractors to hire less experienced workers to do the task of a master carpenter in less time and with higher quality.
Shinglewood Sawmill meets the needs of its customers with an advanced wood-shingling product that will last for generations. We manufacture our product with materials sourced from sustainable forests, avoiding clear-cut practices. We are consistently advancing manufacturing processes to reduce waste and reduce our carbon footprint. We strive to not only be a positive member of the world but also a positive business in our community.
When you ask master carpenters, “What is the best siding choice?” The answer is always “Cedar Shingles!” Wood shingle siding has the track record of being the longest-lasting, best-performing choice of siding for over 100 years. The traditional flat shingles are overlapped and staggered when installed, making an impenetrable covering that keeps out the weather while allowing the structure to breathe. The solid corner shingles work the same way, extending this coverage around the corners of the structure. Our solid corner shingles, when paired with flat shingles, make the best siding choice even better. Solid corner shingles are used when you want it done or repaired the right way. The overlapping properties and one-piece design of the corner shingle is what make our product the best choice for the customer that wants a long-lasting, good-looking, low-maintenance siding product.
Before we created the solid corner shingle, the solution for a shingled corner was a method called “weaving a corner.” Weaving corners consists of creating a corner from flat shingles by alternating seams from row to row. Each one is custom cut to fit tight against the sistered shingle on the opposite wall. After measuring twice, cutting, planing, and double-checking the fit, carpenters carefully tack the seam together with one finish nail to slow the inevitable separation of the weaved corner.
This is a long process repeated for every row of shingles, from standing on the ground to swaying on scaffolding three stories high. This long, sometimes dangerous process is necessary to create a tightly woven corner. It requires a very experienced carpenter. Weaving corners is a very specialized type of work. If completed by the inexperienced, it results in a sub-par siding job that will not last against the elements. Our solid corner shingles eliminate that time-eating hustle of weaving corners. Solid corner shingles install fast and simple, like a flat shingle, and require no extra tools or customizing. This makes solid corner shingles the safe, economical, good-looking, easy way to shingle corners.
Professional carpenters and do-it-yourself homeowners who can not master the weaving process resort to installing a corner trim board to butt the flat shingles against for a quick installation. This results in three direct routes through the siding to the inner structure; the 2 cracks between the trim board and shingles and the crack where the boards meet at the corner both must be regularly filled and maintained with weatherproofing products. The wood used for corner trim boards does not last as long as the wood shingles and also needs maintenance more often than a cedar board. Solid corner shingles will outlast other wood corner trim boards, weather equally with the rest of the wall shingles, and accept maintenance when the full wall needs it, ie. This makes solid corner shingles the best choice when you need to shingle a corner.
Our solid corner shingles are able to showcase the look of high-end craftsmanship and provide better quality performance. They are installed easier and faster than any other corner siding option. Our solid corner shingles achieve this by covering the 90-degree corner with a one-piece seamless shingle that staggers next to its sistered shingles, creating full coverage with no seams. That is why our product is the best.
Shinglewood Sawmill’s flagship product is the solid corner shingle, but they are also producing pine shingles. Pine shingles are not commonly used today in construction, but they were the most common shingles 100 years ago. Red and white cedar trees grow in the north, so cedar shingle homes were only found in the north. Infill and our transportation of goods became economical.
Back then it was not economical to ship red cedar or white cedar long distances to sell. Pine was plentiful in rural areas to use as shingle siding, and most all buildings shingled 100 years ago were shingled with pine. Today those pine-shingle-clad barns and homes are still standing and well protected. Their only weak points are their corners, which our corner shingles will remedy.
Cedar slowly became the primary wood used in shingle making as the transportation system grew in the United States. Pine was put on the back burner as cedar looked better than pine as it aged naturally on shingles. Surprisingly, most shingle homes today are painted to cover that natural look. Cedar is also known for its long-lasting, pest-free properties, but as history shows, pine shingles protect and keep out the elements just as long as cedar. With today’s advanced paint coverings, pine shingles are an equal choice to cedar shingles; the only difference is the aesthetic appearance if one chooses to leave the surface unpainted.
Shinglewood Sawmill also produced custom shingles, which have a contoured bottom edge, creating a repetitive design on the completed wall. They can be made out of other species of wood to create unique architectural designs that are one of a kind to suit our customers’ needs. We can make custom shingles out of any wood material you choose. This offers a large variety of options and offers business branding options to stand out in a naturally appealing way.
Shinglewood Sawmill supports the buy local movement and USA-made products. The majority of shingles produced today come from Canada, where the cedar tree population is diminishing; this drives the price of cedar products higher. Hopefully because of today’s improved transportation system and advanced wood coverings, the movement away from cedar will bring back the common use of pine shingles. Pine trees are an abundant, fast-growing natural resource. White cedar trees are scarce. They grow slower than pine. If we use more pine in our building methods, it will promote cedar groves to grow longer, giving them some protection from the saw in Maine.
Shinglewood Sawmill wastes no materials. All scrap wood and sawdust is used to produce pellets or pressed wood used in home heating; large scrap shingles and seconds are cut into shims used in the construction field to keep structures level. Large pieces are turned on a lathe to become decorative dowels on screen doors.
Shinglewood Sawmill’s mission is to keep the best building practices of shingling alive by changing some materials used to produce them. Make a variety of home coverings that are superior to those of the past, all while setting a good example as a community-based environmentally friendly business.