Old Heartwood Southern Yellow Pine

[Barry]

I'm repairing floors in a home that is over 145 years old. The T&G flooring is heartwood Southern Yellow Pine. There are a few boards needing replacement here and there in the room. Then there is one area about 5' x 6' in front of a window. It is dry rotted and needs to be replaced with stable material to match the rest of this room so that when sanded for refinishing it will match. Anyone out there have any suggestions as to where to find or make replacement boards The original floor is 7/8" thick. I've done some dumpster diving to rescue old yellow pine from every manner of architectural components that contractors throw away. .... doors baseboards etc.... Have been able to salvage some useable materials so far. I'm in the Northern Kentucky area across the river from Cincinnati.

B. Frye

[Rick M]

"Barry" wrote

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Try these folks

're a bit of a drive for you, but it sounds like they have what you need.

Regards,

Rick

[Duane Bozarth]

Don't have a specific vendor but if Rick M's suggestion doesn't pan out there are several recycling/reclaiming places advertising in places like Fine Homebuilding, etc. They're pricey undoubtedly for old material but it will be very difficult to find new that comes even close to the old closed-grain material.

[raffo]

Those old pine boards may be heartwood pine (also known as long leaf pine) . We found this flooring in our house. I did some research about it and ended up buying a small quantity to replace and fix some areas of our house. We got it from

they were very helpful.

Make sure of the kind of cut you need: quarter sawn or plain sawn.

You may find that after installation, the color of the new pine is lighter than the old one. This wood will oxidize with time an reach an amber color. I suggest you not to stain it, just let it age. Ours looked dissimilar right after installation, but after five months the new wood is starting to blend with our old boards. The vendor told us that after a year or two you wont see the difference.

[Bob N]

We live in a 100 + year old house and just recently pulled the carpet to find the heartwood pine under it. There were several boards needing replacing during the refinishing process. Our floor man found that the yellow pine at Home depot was nearly a perfect match. We have been very happy with the results.

[Duane Bozarth]

...

That's pretty remarkable given that new SYP probably came from trees less than 30 yrs of age. How close a match will probably have to do w/ whether what you previously had was plainsawn or not--the close grain of old climax forest pine won't show as much in that case.

I'd suspect that there is a noticeable difference in hardness though?

[George]

There's the virgin forest baloney again. You can produce trees for a specific purpose by altering sivaculture methods. If you desire wide boards you use one schedule, if you want close-grained narrow, yet another.

"Hardness" in a floor application is a function of orientation and separation of the annual rings.

[Duane Bozarth]

Yes, and used again specifically for the point that SYP from 100 years ago came from non-cultured forests and typically (almost universally) grew much more slowly than today's cultured, fast-grown woods. What HD is selling is definitely being cultured for slow, narrow-grain purposes...