There have been a few posts about reclaiming old posts and timbers with the following caveat; remove all nails before sawing. Well this only makes good sense. My question is, even if the nails are removed, could there be sufficient residual corrosion in the holes to shorten the life of planer or jointer blades used to finish up the resawn pieces? That's all, just a question, but someday I might get lucky enough to reclain some old/used stuff. Marc
If there are visible debris in the holes you could drill the holes out larger to remove the debris or cut the holes out if they are near the edge of the board. I do this with unwanted knots so that I don't take a chunk of the knives by hitting the knot.
I pretty much assume that I'm going to do some damage to the cutting edges of tools when I work with reclaimed wood... nicked the iron on my L-N 7 on a bit of metal that I missed in a piece of reclaimed old growth pine a few weeks ago. That really annoyed me as the plane was only a few weeks old!
John
Yes you will harm the blades somewhat. It not the residue in the holes so much as the little pieces of nail that get missed. Buy a lumber wizard, and use it religiously. Purchase an extra set of blades so you don't have downtime in case of a booboo. Good luck Lyndell
I'm one of the old timber posters...another thing to consider is when we process new KD Beech, we often find plenty of bullets. The lead isn't too bad on the tools but it makes me think that the old timbers are also full of bullets. Take down my building and you can HAVE all the old timber!
It's worth the effort, IMO, but ... old wood can sometimes have debris in it that is not visible. It's not unusual, depending on where it came from, to come across pieces of barbed wire, staples, nails, all kinds of things that the tree simply grew around over the years. So, there's a certain amount of gambling to it but in general I think it's worth the gambles.
Pop
Wouldn't a decent metal detector be capable of finding all that stuff, metal anyway? I don't own one so maybe they're not as capable as I've been led to believe?
I've missed some stuff with my metal detector... things like broken screws, nails, staples, chunks of rust, and small tacks. These kinds of things leave little nicks in the knives... not great but not terrible either if you view these tools as dimensioning tools and not as finishing tools.
John
Ok, thanks for that information. I was under the impression that current technology for (at least what is available (read affordable) to the consumer) was more efficient that that. I guess that won't happen until MRI machines are down to the price of consumables. :)
Current metal detector technology is that good but you won't find it in the typical cheap wands that woodworkers usually have. Look at $500.00 or more and you will get something that won't miss stuff. A friend of mine (a prospector) just bought one for $1200.00 that will even identify what kind of metal.
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