How to Nail Cedar Shingle Siding

Nail cedar shingle siding with stainless steel (or hot-dipped galvanized) nails, two per shingle, placed about 1″ above the butt line of the next course so the heads stay concealed — and set the gun so it seats flush without splitting the cedar. Cedar's tannins corrode ordinary nails, so the fastener is the critical choice. Here's the full method: nails, gun setup, wall prep, course-by-course technique, and the mistakes that ruin cedar walls.

Why the fastener decides how this wall ages

Cedar shingle siding fails in two characteristic ways, and both trace back to nailing. The first is staining: cedar's tannins are acidic, and they eat ordinary steel. Bright or electro-galvanized nails corrode inside the wood, and every rain washes iron-tannate stains down the wall — black streaks under every hidden nail head, visible through even a fresh coat of stain. The second is splitting: cedar shingles are thin, straight-grained, and taper to a fragile butt edge; an overdriven nail, or one placed too close to an edge, opens a split that runs with the grain and eventually lets the shingle cup or drop. Choose the right nail and set the gun correctly, and a cedar wall goes decades; get either wrong and it starts failing in a couple of seasons.

The nails: what to use and what to refuse

• Size: a 3d–5d siding nail — long enough to penetrate solid sheathing or framing by ~¾″ through your wall build-up (shingle + underlayment; add for rainscreen furring). Typically 1¼″–2″ — see siding nail sizes.
• Shank and head: ring-shank for hold; a small siding-nail head, since every head gets covered by the next course anyway.
• Count: two per shingle, exactly. Wide shingles (over ~8″) can take a third nail pattern per manufacturer guidance, but never a row — cedar must be free to move with moisture, and extra nails pin it until it splits.

The gun setup

A coil siding nailer loaded with stainless coils is the right tool — the smaller siding-nail head sits neatly, the 1¼″–2½″ range covers any wall build-up, and a 300-nail coil lasts most of a wall section. Cedar splits and dents if overdriven, so the setup routine matters:

1. Start your compressor at the low end of the gun's PSI range (our PSI guide covers the numbers).
2. Set depth-of-drive so the head seats flush with the shingle face — never below it. A crushed head halves the holding power and starts the split.
3. Fire at least ten test nails into a scrap shingle over scrap sheathing and adjust until every head lands identically. Cedar density varies shingle to shingle, so err a hair shallow — a proud head can be tapped flush with a hammer; a buried one can't be undone.
4. Use sequential mode. Bump-firing tempts you to move faster than precise two-nail placement allows.

Placement: where exactly the two nails go

• In from the edges: about ¾″ from each side edge. Closer splits the edge grain; farther in lets the edges curl.
• Above the next course's butt line: roughly 1″ above where the next course's butts will land, so every head is covered (concealed nailing) but the nail still catches the shingle below's top.
• Never through a keyway: a nail placed in or immediately beside the gap between the shingles beneath has nothing behind it and telegraphs the joint.
• Square to the wall: angled nails leave one edge of the head proud, which prints through the next course.

Courses, keyways, and exposure

• Leave a keyway gap of about ¼″ between shingles so they can swell when wet without buckling.
• Offset joints at least 1½″ course to course, and don't let joints align within any three consecutive courses — stacked keyways are a water path straight to the sheathing.
• Hold a consistent weather exposure for your shingle length and grade (commonly around 5″ for 16″ shingles, 5½″ for 18″, 7½″ for 24″ — check your bundle). Exposure discipline is what keeps the two-nail concealment geometry working.
• Start with a doubled starter course at the bottom, butts overhanging the water table or foundation line slightly to drip clear.
• Snap a chalk line (or tack a straightedge board) for every course — cedar walls telegraph a wandering line badly.

What goes behind the shingles

Cedar sidewall shingles last longest when they can dry from both faces. Over the sheathing you want a proper water-resistive barrier (felt or housewrap), and in wetter climates a rainscreen layer — either a drainage-mesh underlayment or vertical furring strips — so the back of each shingle isn't trapped against a damp wall. If you fur the wall, remember the furring in your nail-length math: the nail still needs ~¾″ of bite into solid sheathing or framing beyond the gap. Shingling tight to housewrap alone works in dry climates, but the rainscreen build is what the premium jobs use, and it's cheap insurance under a wall you're fastening with stainless anyway.

Replacing a broken shingle later

Worth knowing before you nail thousands of them: a damaged shingle comes out by splitting it with a chisel, sliding a hacksaw blade (or shingle ripper) up under the course above to cut the two hidden nails, and sliding a new shingle up into place. The replacement gets face-nailed with two stainless nails just below the course above's butt line — the one place face-nailing is normal practice. The tighter and more consistent your original two-nail placement, the easier every future repair goes, because the ripper finds the nails where they're supposed to be.

Common mistakes

• Wrong nails — bright or electro-galvanized rust and streak cedar. The most expensive mistake because the fix is refastening the wall.
• Overdriving — crushes fibers, halves the hold, starts splits. Flush, every time.
• Nailing too low — heads exposed below the next course's butt line, or driven through the fragile butt taper.
• Too many nails — a third or fourth nail doesn't strengthen a standard shingle, it pins it against movement until it cracks.
• Tight keyways or stacked joints — buckling shingles and water paths respectively.

Finish and first-year care

Fastening and finishing interact more than people expect. If the wall will be stained or sealed, the cleanest results come from coating shingles before or immediately after hanging — once weathering starts, the exposed faces and the keyway edges age at different rates. Left natural, cedar grays unevenly for the first year or two before settling into its silver; that's normal, not a nailing problem. What is a nailing problem: any black dot or streak appearing at a nail location in the first season. Catch it early, confirm the fastener type, and swap the offenders for stainless before the stains set into the wood — iron stain that's been through a few wet seasons never fully bleaches out.

Frequently asked questions

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