Any tips on aging pine clapboards?

[nhguy]

There's no chance to return the pine claps to the local lumber yard............less the ones you already modified by sanding that is. There are two places in VT that make spruce claps too, just south of Rte. 89 near Warren, VT. I have a gable end to do this year or next as the sun has taken a toll on them. I don't have much advice on smoothing rough sawn claps to make smoother yet aged.

[GibsonGM]

Trouble is, 4 bundles of them are already on the house and have a coat of stain, LOL. It's just an 'aesthetic' issue...I can tell the first 2 feet on my front are new, then go back to old from there up. I don't think anyone else will pick up on it tho. Not that we have anyone up here in the boonies, LOL!

I'm probably being too picky...I've seen historic homesteads have the same replacements, and nobody seems to mind, so...

[Mick_VT]

I'll bet nobody will notice. My biggest peeve is the way they often round the sharp corners off lumber these days. Makes it safer to handle, but that alters the look of clapboards no end

[GibsonGM]

Exactly!!

[Olson185]

"Consistency" is one of those issues that applies to so many things and most people feel very uncomfortable with inconsistency. I think most old house people learn to live with a certain amount of inconsistency out of financial necessity. For most others, inconsistency implies lower financial resources or standards and this is an implication most prefer to avoid.

Whether or not a repair should or should not be allowed to be noticeable depends on the practicality of what it would take to make the repair unnoticeable.

I'm not coming up with an example in which I would want to shorten the lifespan of a repair in order to hide it. In such a case, where the new and old are distinguishable, the inconsistency caused by new material among old is tolerable.

When it comes to many things like siding repair, I ask myself, "What would the Amish do?", because I consider them to be practical about such things.