Fishscale gable question

[Vala]

Alright well this is actually something I discovered a few months ago digging in the attic.

My question is basically, would there have been fishscales originally (see attached pic, redbox area) in the area currently covered by asphalt shingles?

As I was saying, I was digging in the attic (found a couple of cool things) and I found under each gable, many broken fishscale fragments immediately under the area that is now covered by asphalt shingles and since none of the gables appear to be missing any, my only conclusion is that they extended all the way down.

Unfortunately, the place was completely re roofed with all underlying layers torn off 10 years ago so there's nothing to pull back and uncover. So how difficult would it be to recreate this detail? From the chunks I found, the only fishscale style this lower part had was the rectangular design. I am 100% sure they weren't ordinary wood shingles as they were painted and quite thick just like the fishscales on the gables now. Also I have found wood shingle remnants and they were paper thin.

I probably answered my own question here but I'd still like to hear what others think about this whole thing.

[Mick_VT]

Are they square or rounded Vala? And I am assuming the couldn't be offcuts or remnants of construction? No paint or weathering?

I dont have an answer for you as such, but I dont recall seeing fancy fishscales in such places, however I have seen roofing shakes there. Did your place perhaps originally have a wood shake roof perhaps?

[Vala]

No, they are square and they have 3 layers of paint on it like the ones on there now. And yea we had a wood shingle roof originally but these aren't shingles. I'll try to get a photo up later but they are definately the same as what is on the visible face right now.

I found a photo in mattswabb's album of a house with what I'm talking about where they have fishscales on the down slope where I have roofing shingles now. This is what I think my place had until they reroofed it and tore it off. I'm guessing PO's had put roofing shingles over this part before so that would explain why it was torn off as "roofing shingles" since they had 4 layers of previous shingles laid down. 3 of those layers were asphalt.

[Mick_VT]

I think you are probably right then Vala!

[Vala]

That's what I am thinking.

Here I got some photos of a couple of the fragments I found. I really want to re create these in place of those roofing shingles now.

The one on the right isn't missing a corner, it was cut that way on purpose, to fit in with the corner of the slope.

[Vala]

oh and another note on fishscale gables. From the inside of the attic, you can see that the gables were originally just wood shingle gables. The fishscales went over them. Interesting thing is I have seen photos of another old house in Illinois that had originally a plain shingle gable, then around 1908 it was converted to fishscales. Seems mine was the same way. Was this a thing in any other region or just something local to my area?

[JRC]

I don't claim to have seen everything, or to know everything, but I'd be very surprised if that small portion of asphalt roof originally had fish scale shingles. Whenever I've seen decorative shingles not on a vertical surface, they were flaring/curving out from a vertical surface, like in the example you posted. But, on your house, there is a clear angle between the vertical surface, and the surface with the asphalt shingles.

[Vala]

Well maybe they reworked it a little when they reroofed. I found a lot of fishscale fragments, too many to have just been "left over from cutting" not to mention they have the same 3 coats of paint that the rest of the fishscales do.

[Mick_VT]

I have a sense you are right about these shingles Vala, might be hard to tell if that slope was reworked or not. I would assume though that if it originally was a smooth curved transition from the wall other gable ends would be the same, and I cant see how that would have worked on that side gable with the railing on the right of your signature pic

[Vala]

About the railing side, I was wondering that myself.