Old recovered barn wood in furniture project

Re: Old recovered barn wood in furniture project

Tom Gattiker

I should add that the intent is for this to be rustic. No expectation that the top will be flat, etc. On the other hand, the thing can't fall apart after a few years; it needs to be square enough to acomodate a cabinet door and a couple of drawers; etc.

These are the projects I work hard to avoid

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

My only thought is to build a cabinet from plywood and then try to veneer the show surfaces with this wood.

Re: Old recovered barn wood in furniture project

Dave Bair

Try Rust-Oleum Weather Gray Ultimate Wood Stain or Varathane Weathered Wood Accelerator. Both seem to produce the weathered look based on photos. The surface of actual heavily weathered wood is fragile and flakey and will not stand up to daily use.

Re: Old recovered barn wood in furniture project

Tony-Memphis

Sounds like a fun project. I might approach this by building a good solid plywood box, then cover it with the barn boards. To get around the severe cupping, you may have to rip them in half. Otherwise, you could screw them down to the plywood from inside the box. Yeah, I know expansion, contraction, all that jazz, but this is rustic. My dad rescued a small table once that was so warped, I'm surprised it was not already garbage - he used probably 100 dry wall screws to flatten it and it turned out really nice - and still is many years later. I would cut all of this stuff on my bandsaw too.

Good luck with it.

Tony

Powder post beetle

Dick Coers

I've seen a lot of barn wood, filled with powder post beetle. I've even been given hand planes from old barn shops that had them in it. He and you should both be aware that they could be introduced into your shop and his home. Sterilizing with heat is the only sure way to kill them and the eggs.

Re: Old recovered barn wood in furniture project

John K Jordan

You can fake weathered barn wood but I think it always looks fake. Depending on the extent of the weathering you might sandblast the planed wood to simulate the weathering of the softer parts of the grain but IF the wood was originally rough cut lumber trying to duplicate the saw marks is harder. Maybe bandsaw one face before sandblasting.

I would definitely try making one small thing and let him see the issues.

Hiding the cut edges is another issue. I have no idea if it will help even a bit but this is the way I make picture frames from weathered barn wood. Both methods leave no freshly cut edge showing from the front. (I have a lot of old barn wood.)

JKJ

This should be a simple, instructive project

Yonak

Tom, unsurfaced, unfinished weathered wood will collect unremovable dust and dirt. That said, your friend said he wants it rustic so I really don't see a problem. Cut all the pieces to size and attach with cut nails or, maybe drywall screws. Don't worry if any of the fasteners show. It's supposed to be rustic. If you want to, kind of, hide the fasteners, assemble with blocks. If there are gaps, remember, it's supposed to be rustic.

Re: This should be a simple, instructive project

Barry Irby

I have some Rose Head nails if you want them.

I used to go to a local lumber yard and buy "characteristic lumber" and make picture frames out of it. It was the boards off the top of the stacks that had weathered. They sold a lot of it to movie companies for building sets. I did them exactly like JKJ showed.

PS

Tony-Memphis

Don't forget the old trick of cutting a dado in the back of a warped board making it easier to manipulate. Often, a saw kerf width is enough.

Re: Old recovered barn wood in furniture project

Jack Guzman from Maine

I've done this. I salvaged a broken barn door into a small set of cabinets. Drawer fronts were screwed on and all the trim and sheathing installed with cut nails and black drywall screws over a plywood box. The client uses it for art supplies. The surface is not durable. The client has to be aware that the texture is purely for looks. This material damages with very little abuse. But it makes for a quite attractive cabinet. The countertop is clear finished white pine. post pictures of the finished product.---Jack

Re: PS

Tom Gattiker

That's a new trick for me. Thanks for the info

Re: Powder post beetle

Tom Gattiker

I don't think we have powder post beetles here in Idaho at least not up where these boards lived for 50+ years (5000 ft above sea level... cold.....). I will have to check on that though.

Re: This should be a simple, instructive project

Tom Gattiker

Thanks Barry. Where are you located?

Re: This should be a simple, instructive project

Barry Irby

I am near Richmond, VA. A long haul from Idaho.

I will have to fish the nails out of deep storage and see what I have and how big they are. If I recall I have three sizes, but one of them is about 8" long.

Re: Old recovered barn wood in furniture project

AZ in Colorado Springs

I've done this kind of thing for a friend. Used heavily weathered boards instead of recovered barn wood. Joint the backs of the boards (facing inside the cabinet) and then square the edges using those flat faces as the reference. It may be that the boards are of uneven thicknesses, even within each board. So, you attempt to match the thickness of the mating edges when you glue up a panel. Sand across the rustic face with a ROS and it comes out nicely rustic.

Clamping the corners without denting the wood can be a challenge. I used pocket screws to pull the corners together from the inside. One jointed edge, as I described above, glued to a flattened face of another board. This way, you can have a rustic egde on the end of the front, for instance, and the rustic appearance continues around the corner.

Not difficult, but as you observed, different from our usual practice of squaring all the boards at the outset of the project.