I recently demolished a house and am planning a new house for the site. I need some advice on preparing pine beams salvaged from the demolition.
The original house was built in the ’20s with pine floor joists over a dirt cellar; the beams measure about 6×8 inches. I think they were originally painted white since some have flaking paint. They are covered with various nail holes and other “antiquing,” but are rot-free. I have six of them that are about 12 feet long (it was a small house.)
I would like to finish refinish the wood for use as exposed beams in the new house. I understand I need to remove nails and sand, but I’m wondering if anyone has tips before I jump into the project. I have a Dewalt 433 belt sander I plan to use. The wood is nearly 100 years old. Any tips on grits for sanding, finishes for the wood, or other relevant advice would be appreciated.
Replies
My logs are from way back here in this shack, they were covered over the yrs with various stuff,including white wash.
I bought 3 Habor freight angle grinders 4.5" for about 17.00 a pc. On one I had a coarse wire wheel, another I had a 4.5" 24 grit "flap" wheel, and the other I had about an 80G sanding /grinding disc. I also had a Dwalt grinder with the chainsaw type cutter.
With all of these I was able to get the rough hewn clean, but still leave the axe marks..I think a belt sander would flatten out the beams too much for my taste, but I can't see them, so I don't know how ruff yours are.
I brushed on about 5 coats of Deft semi-gloss Lacquer heavily, in the kitchen area to be able to clean them easily..others are just oiled with Turp and boiled linseed Oil mixed 50/50.
Power washing is another option, as is media blasting with corn cob or walnut hulls, don't use sand or similar abrsives.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"
I have pressure washed alot of old wood with no ill effects... helps to spray with the grain... you only want to remove so much character... the flaws (just like in your wife) become endearing features...
:)
p
Have you ever tried an adze? We use them at work for all our beam work.
Well one thing to look out for is to not go sanding if that paint contains lead. Not sure what alternatives exist. Maybe planing them if you are sure you get all the nails out and don't mind losing some dimension. Side benefit would be that you could square them up in a jointer while at it.
Absolutely sandblast. You can have them blasted with a softer media if you are worried, but from what I have seen in pine and fir, sandblasting leaves plenty of patina but will remove all nasty residue.
Sanding? You couldn't pay me enough.
The white "paint" is probably Whitewash. I've seen it a lot on older houses especially on the beams under the house. The lime in the Whitewash helped to keep insects away for the wood and helped to prevent decay. Most of it will come off easily but the wood beneath will have a bleached look to it that might or might not be deep in the beams. If that is pleasing to you ,great if not then apply a good primer and paint.Good Luck !! Bill D. Quality Wood Chips
Whitewash was also used as a fire spread restriction.I am betting that with his geographic location, and the location in the house for these beams over a crawl, that he most likely has some heart pine there. That will make some pretty nice wood finished up
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It was also for sanitation. My Grand fathers barn (from 1734) was whitewashed often being as it was a dairy operation. Easy to keep clean(er).
Funny, in 1966 the Amish came 100 miles in buggies and took the barn down piece by piece and re erected it out thier way, when G-Pa sold the farm. Still standing as far as I know.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"
I worked at a dairy farm part time and summers for two years or so while in HS. twice a year, we cleaned all the area and then an outfit came in and sprayed the whitewash. My job was to put on a bandanna and hat and goggles, and use the air pressure hose to blast all the cobwebs and such loose from beams, walls, ceiling, passageways, and then sweep the floors. Not my favorite job. I preferred cleaning the gutters to that one.I think that whitewash was probably 3/8" to 1/2" thick after so many years.
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Yep, absolutly correct . The whitewash did also help to prevent firespread. Thanks Piffen!
heart pine?it will be very heavy and you wil notice a turpentine like smell when you sand. If so, you will use 2-3 times as many sanding discs, because the resins will build a wax on the sandpaper.Use the heaviest grit you can to start.
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I've reused some old wood, mainly old growth doug fir, and have had good results treating it like any other rough sawn wood.
To start with primarily I look for nails and whatnot that might ding a blade and it makes sense to remove any paint.
Set the beams on sawhorses so you can decide what needs to be adjusted before starting any detail work on the surfaces. It makes no sense to carefully sand the thing if it's got a twist or bow that needs to be cut out first.
Cut the beams to the length you need for your project to make the next steps less time consuming.
Then make plumb and level reference lines on both ends. Sometimes it helps to use string lines (set plumb and/or level) along the sides of the beam to show what needs to be shaved away to get a true piece of wood. Then it's mainly a matter of using an electric hand planer to remove what you don't want.
If you are familiar with winding sticks to remove a twist, it's sort of the same idea just a different way of getting it good and straight.
When you're done getting the dimensions very close I'd run it through a thickness planer if you like a uniform look.
Unfortunately, by the time you true up and plane a 6"x8"x12' it might only be a 5x7 or less.
Good building
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
atlanta,
once you have the beams clean and are up I suggest that as soon as the house can be closed up you give them all a coat of shellac..
three reasons,
First shellac will seal all orders in so if there is some stink in the wood from smokers, animal smells, mice pee etc.. (all of which happens a lot) it will be sealed in..
Second. shellac seals knots and weeping in so you won't have any bleed thru if you paint.
third, pine absorbs stain very unevenly so if you decide to stain later or paint etc. shellac will provide a nice even base to stain off of..
Finally shellac gives a richness and depth without a plastic look that other finishes have. all fine antiques are done in shellac.
;)As soon as I saw your name, I said to myself, "Shellac"
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Piffin,
If someone else would say it, It sure would save me some typing.. I didn't invent shellac and I don't gain from it's use but I do like to give back to the community that has helped me.. I've noted nobody disagrees with me, surprised since I deliberatly held off that nobody beat me to it..
It is agood thing for lot of uses, but I am going to commit sacrilege in your eyes and say that it is not the best for all things in all ways. An oil base ploy or a rubbing oil canbe much more beautiful. And not all antiques are shellaced. A great many are oiled or waxed.In the case of these beams, I would want to know more specifics about the exact species of wood, it's condition, and his inteneded location and the look he wants before blindly recommending shellac.
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Frenchy
In my 150 year old house I have some oak flooring. I dont like oak for much more then fire wood but someone about 80 years ago decided it would look better then the pine/fir that was there.
Then a little later someone decided that carpet would be a better flooring. I tore the carpet up in my living room and dining room. Carpet had some of this old rubber padding under it that had actually left an imprint on the floor. I couldnt wash it off with anything, it had actually etched a print into the floor.
I got out my sander to see if I could maybe sand out the etching and then wax the floor. I saw that I could do it that way buy i decided to give it the "shellac" test. Opened up a can of denatured alcohol and spilled some out on the floor. Within about 3 minutes it started to desolve the finish! I knew I had shellac for a finish.
I went to Menards and bought 5 gallons of alcohol and within about 2 1/2 hours I had the entire 17' X 21' living room striped(redistributed the shellac). I will give it a couple more coats of shellac and call it good.
The living room is one of the last rooms that I will remodel so it will have to sufice for a couple years. At that point I will rip the damn oak out and put an appropreate floor back in.
I dont want to put to much effort into flooring that I dont intend to keep but for the next couple of years it will look good and all I have into it is a few bucks and a few hours of work.
Doug
DougU
It must be a regional thing, around here people would pull out pine/fir and put in oak.. White Oak is harder and more durable, even red oak would be harder than the hardest Fir and Fir can be harder than pine..
Hardwoods VS softwoods..
Glad you found out about the shellac though, saved you a bunch of time didn't it?
Glad you found out about the shellac though, saved you a bunch of time didn't it?
Ummm, well, no actually.
My enclosed front porch ceiling in my 1920's era home has a 3" fir beaded board ceiling on it. The ceiling is about 4 feet below the slate roof and the area was never insulated due to the fact it was a porch.
Over the years the shellac softened and sagged to the point of looking like there was something dripping all over the ceiling.
It took 4 gallons of stripper, 42,000 brain cells and a power washer to remove it.
It is now coated with oil poly and looks fabulous.
i'm quite confident that i won't ever be using shellac for anything other than sealing knots.
hoping for your sake that the shellac on your beams 20 feet up where it's 95 degrees isn't doing the same thing.
carpenter in transition
timkline
Do I have this correct, You used stripper on shellac?
Why? Why do things the hard way?
Next question, Shellac doesn't soften. that's a statement.. Oh, if improperly applied it might shrink and get all alagatoree. But it remains hard.. If it get's wet for a prolonged period of time it turns white. Amonia and denatured alcohol will remove it. (so will a fine single malt scotch <G> )
Are you absolutely sure you had shellac?That's the question.
yes, i'm sure it was shellac.
yes, shellac does soften at about 140-150 F
don't know where the slate roof above goes to at summer temps, i'm sure an egg would fry.
so i should have made my life so much easier by hand scrubbing a wood ceiling with ammonia or solvent alcohol instead of painting on a chemical stripper ?
carpenter in transition
Timkline,
shove a rag soaked with DNA up on a stick for a few minutes and get one of those scrubber sponges the house wives use, pull the rag down and give it a good scrub with the DNA soaked sponge.. (redampen the rag and move it over a bit while you're scrubbing)..
I stripped my Piano of shellac inside of about 45 minutes doing that technique. (damp rag softening ahead of where I was working)
if it was all flat and easily accessable it would have been a 15 minute job.. that shellac was over 70 years old..
150 degrees? Wow! that's some temp, anything burst into flame? <G>
It takes 450-495°F to hit flash point with wood
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Frenchy
AS you know here in the midwest we have oak woodwork everywhere. I grew up with it and just like I grew up in a town that loved the Cubs I cant stand either!
I've never cared for oak woodwork. There are some beautiful examples of craftsmanship out there regarding oak woodwork and I've seen a lot of it but givin the choice I would rather have paint or in the case of my house pine/fir floors and painted WW.
The Amanas are similar in some ways to the Amish or Menonites, not a lot of flair in their woodwork, no showing off with raised panels on the outside, always facing the inside of the cabinet. I want to recreate that look here in my house. I will make a few exceptions in the kitchen and the private areas of the house like the family room and the bedrooms though.
Glad you found out about the shellac though, saved you a bunch of time didn't it?
Yes it did!
Doug
redistributed the shellac
Doing an apt reno and after removing the carpet and doing the alcohol test discovered the same thing.
Are you saying that all you did was apply the DA to melt the shellac and redistributed it around then started later with the finish coats or did you wipe it up with towels before a light sanding to even up the tone a bit?
Reason I ask is these floors had tenants that let water sit for a long time on the carpet which buckled the 2inch thin stripped oak floor in a few areas.
Of course the shellac was absent in those areas and shows discoloration thus I need to sand in those places
and tho' it's a rental and we aren't doing the Taj Mahal here I would still like to revitalize these floors with as even a patina as possible.
Rez
Are you saying that all you did was apply the DA to melt the shellac and redistributed it around then started later with the finish coats or did you wipe it up with towels before a light sanding to even up the tone a bit?
I melted the existing shellac and with rags pretty much redistributed some and wiped up the excess! You cant redistribute all of it but you wont get all of it completly up either unless you sand it out of the wood, and you dont want to either, or at least in my case I didnt. I just wanted to get that pattern off the floor from that rubber carpet pad. In the process I got the floors cleaned up from the pad, redistributed the shellac(at least part of it) and with an aditional coat or two I have some pretty nice looking floors. Well nice looking if you call oak floors nice!
You have to remember that denatured alcohol will evaporate fast so dont do to big an area at a time. Of course you will have some lapping but when I got done I took one of my wet rags, one with a lot of color in it and just like staining a floor I went over the entire floor. As your rag starts to drag a little wet/soak it down with DA and keep moving to avoid lap marks or streaks. If you find a streak, no big deal, just go over it with the wet rag and redistribute/blend, thats the beauty of shellac. It really is that easy of a product/finish to work with.
Of course the shellac was absent in those areas and shows discoloration thus I need to sand in those places
I had a few spots where there were some moderate buckles, nothing more then a 1/16th of an inch difference here and there. I sanded those down with my 6" right angle sander and of course they show up a little whiter then the other parts of the floor. Good thing about shellac is that its very easy to tone that area back in.
My floors were pretty orange in color. I'm sure they used orange shellac(amber to some people) to do the floors so it made it easy to repeat that color. You can buy Zinnser shellac in clear and amber. Amber will make a nice orange color on oak or pine.
I had a couple areas that were a little more "white" then usual so I gave those areas several coats of amber shellac before going over the intire floor. Once you go over the intire floor you sort of blend it all together. Good thing about shellac is the number of coats that you can give a floor in a single day, especially this time of the year when the air is pretty dry.
Doug
Some of my buckles were twisted and like an inch in lift so with a couple it was a trim up job to get them to facescrew down. All I have in storage are 1 3/4 inch and these were 2 inch
so I told him unless he wanted a real involved project the thing to do was cover with a area rug out towards the perimeter a ways like the old days and that was the plan so I wasn't real attentive to the final look.
But now I'm thinking these might be able to be salvaged somewhat without a lot of effort to make a passable rental
so now I'm wondering if the shellac might be able to be mixed with some sawdust from the sander to fill in the gaps and screwhead plugs in a primer coat to help hide the boogers.
Think that might work?
be a greenhorn
I've heard of mixing varnish and sawdust to make a grout but never shellac?
You might have to experiment some.
If it were a rental then I might try the plug and fill method, what you got to loose? If you have really big gaps then you could cut some thin strips of wood and fill that way. You have the EZ so cutting strips should be a snap.
Doug
Seems to me shellac would work theoretically, I have burn in shellac repair sticks. Just a thought.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"
I wonder if his cracks are not to big for shellac sticks? I'm guessing so but not real sure.
I guess the bigger question is how many shellac sticks do you have!
Funny I saw a granite counter top guy use a shellac stick to fill a small void in the top that he set for me the other day, never knew thats what they used. He just used a small bottle of Mapp gas and razored off the excess. Seamed to make sense though and his fill was pretty good, damn hard to detect.
I always wanted to do a little practice with a spatula and shellac, good way to do a repair if you're good enough at it. My problem is that I dont do it until I need it and then I have to practice on the money piece!
Doug
LOL.
Yeah, I have the colored set for the $$$ jobs, but rarely use them. I use flattened tip on a soldering iron instead of an alcohol lamp ( like the "pro's" use).
On guitars and some stuff, just crazy glue does a nice job in a clear finish repair.
I wunder how much crazy glue it would take?(G)Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"
Thanks for the input and having seen the work some of you guys perform on here am glad you all take the time to talk with with the little reno rental types. snorK*
Rez
I used to own quite a few rentals, been there and done that way to many times!
Doug
Wonder if you could have "steamed" them flatter?