Theres an old feed mill being torn down near my house so I gp ask them if I can have any of the wood. Of course I can’t have any of the 12 by 12 oak beams that I would really want, but I get to go through the trash pile and take any that I want. I end up taking 3 oak floor joists that are about 3 inches thick, and maybe 9 inches by 10 feet.
I went home and got all the nails out and then called some lumber yards to have them resawn. No one will touch them with a ten foot pole. Now I have three pieces of lumber that I cant really use. I might end up donating them to the habitat for humanity salvage store here.
That’s the last time I get some used lumber thinking that it will be no problem to have it resawn. At least it will be a week or two before I consider it again. 🙂
Replies
The only problem with used wood is that way too much of it gets tossed. You did a good thing by keeping that wood out of the trash. Keep it. At some point you'll buy a bandsaw or meet another woodworker with one.
This is what I recently grabbed out of a dumpster where a bank was being renovated. It was the sub-frame from a counter top, 13.5 ft long by 3.5 ft wide, 6.5" wide x 1-5/8 boards, all beautiful red old growth doug fir. In fact, it was the color of the wood which caught my eye from over 50 yards away. I'm experimenting with the best way to cut it up into useful planks. I bought a $30 thin kerf Freud blade. So far I've cut the long piece with the bored holes into hole-free sections, and I've cut a few of the cross pieces with the single hole into a pair of 2-3/4" wide pieces. But even the 1" center piece with the hole is keeper wood. I'm beginning to think only the wood immediately around the holes will be the scrap.
bill,
Sounds to me like you have the makings of a good bench top there. Mine was acquired the same way. Two 6 x10's x 8'. Stout is good!
Regards,
Ray
BB,
I'm a big fan of recovered wood. Look at the gallery post of my mission sofa table. Made from 30+ year old white oak salvaged from a now demolished school.
There are nail holes in the table (though I filled many). But it just adds to it's "charm."
One trick I've learned is to clearly mark any nails I am unable to remove from recovered wood so I don't plane or saw them with steel blades on my planer or bandsaw (though it is rough on carbide cutters, they do cut nails).
Save the wood - you'll find the right project for it someday...
Mark
Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, cut it with an ax.
We resaw old timber all the time but we have our own bandmill. If you find a bandmill owner and offer to pay for blades they might be willing. Blades are $18 to $30 versus hundreds for fix a circle saw blade. You would need to run a metal detector over the wood to prove there is no metal in the lumber. A pain in the neck but if you want to use old lumber this is how you do it.
Recycled wood with nails is seldom a good deal.The cost for 1 saw blade or 1 set of planer knives is about the cost of 10-30bdft of oak.
Our company and many others do well with recycled lumber. We run thousands of feet through out planers and moulder. We have a crew of denailers and sometimes they miss a few nails so a knife gets nicked here and there. You should see some of the woods we get. Pickle vat oak, Chestnut, Heart pine. We turn old factory beams into flooring. We've supplied the components for a couple of houses that were entirely built out of recycled lumber. It certainly was a good deal!
Being in the business of resawing used wood is different than having 3 pieces of used wood and wanting them resawn.The economics of having 3 pieces of used wood resawn argue against it.
It's a case by case situation. 3 pieces of wood with different woodworkers will yield different results. Depends on the wood as well. Some nice old chestnut with the right informed guy and 3 boards would be worth it. Some guys would be doomed from the get go.
I'm gonna pay the guy $30 for the whole job. That's the price of one Oak board at Lowe's. So if I get 8 or nine boards out of it, it's worth it.
The last update. I got the boards back today and they look pretty good. I got 6 10 inch by 8 ft boards and a few small cutoffs. All are 4/4 stock. We're getting the remnants of that hurricane that just hit Florida all weekend, but as soon as mom nature cooperates, I'll plane em. maybe I'll even figure out what to build with them one day.
Bill,
SAVE that wood. I like the idea that Rick had, pay for the blades to resaw that wood. I do caution you about recycled wood. Look out for metal and FUNGUS. Since it came out of a feed mill, it may contain some nasty spores. Wear the proper dust mask. Not just a partical mask. I once cut some salavaged wood and had a sore throat and watery eyes. The funny smell should of given me a hint of something wrong.
I always have my eyes open for the "old stuff". Drives my bride crazy. But she loves the final outcome of saving on buying new wood.
Enjoy, JOE
You can resaw it yourself, although you'll have more waste than if you did it with a bandsaw.
Use your table saw to make a cut on the top and bottom of the board. You'll probably have a 2.5 inch cut on each (total of 5 inches cut out), and that will leave you with ab out 4 inches in the middle.
Then use a handsaw or, if a sawzall will work (with a long blade), cut out the middle. The saw cuts you made earlier will help guide the hand sawing. You'll have more work to do in planing the cut area, as it will not be by any means flush, but the board will be resawn.
John
Man that'sa good idea!
Well done! Using recycled wood can be a joy ... or it can be a bitch.
I've been working my way through a truck load of 100 year old floor boards for a year or so (see the table at http://www.macpherson.co.nz). These boards have everything you can imagine in them - from the original square iron nails to carpet tacks, staples, plumbing fittings, you name it. Worse, they're covered with carpet, linoleum, and a thick layer of adhesive. They look terrible!
I have a few cheap cabide blades, and I don't waste time denailing (other than the big iron nails) I just rip a mm off the top side, then remove what's left visible. Can be fun, and it's dirty work, even with dust extraction!
Works tho, and doesn't waste time. The timber is superb kauri.
Malcolm New Zealand | New Thinking0.06% of the world's people are Kiwis
UPDATE:
I found one guy in the whole yellow pages under sawmills that will do it. Unlike everyone else, he has no problem with it and says he saws used lumber all the time. If you're in or near Lancaster County, Minich's Sawing Service will take care of you. I thought I would give the guy a plug.
I have an old metal detector that doesn't find coins very well but will always find a piece of iron. The price of small metal detectors for woodworkers has come down so you might try one of them. There are companies that specialize in milling old barnwood to make flooring. If one is in your area check them out, they might mill it for you or trade you for it.
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