The Hobbs brothers have been picking their way across the American South, deconstructing century old barns and farmhouses, looking for a rare treasure - old-growth pine lumber. These precious floorboards, ceiling joists, and framing studs were cut from the very trees that once dominated the Southern landscape. "As we reclaim this wood we're reclaiming history, we're reclaiming memories, and in some small way, if you think about it, we're reclaiming ourselves." -Matt Hobbs
It's sad, in a way. The original users of that wood, were finding treasure growing in the ground, and harvesting it for their use. Now, to get some of the same quality wood, it takes destruction of the old structures.
I saw a slightly-broken ugly old dining table the other day, with a full 20" wide solid walnut board as one leaf. I've never seen that good a board for sale.
Unless you are talking strictly walnut, it is still possible to buy wide boards. 20+ inches wide. My local lumbar supplier has mahogany in wide sizes. And monthly I get a news letter from a supplier that offers 30+ inches wide.
BUT I do not see a lot of North American boards that wide.
Twenty inch wide walnut is readily available, either newly sawn or salvaged boards. True, there are fewer old trees available to be newly sawn. I'd think most old walnut wasn't sawn into thick boards, 2" and greater, so fi nding thick slabs, for reclaiming, is not as prevalent as thinner boards.
As to the Hobbs brothers, I've never heard of them, as to being renowned sa lvagers, as some of the videos seem to profess. I'm not so impressed with them, at least thus far, though recycling is a noble venture. Listening t o their speaking, they seem to have just stumbled onto the idea that reclai ming old lumber is something they, only, have discovered and are, now, intr oducing their discovery to everyone else, as if other folks don't know abou t it. Maybe it's just the folks in the Athens area that's been out of tou ch, that way. Some of their comments, about reclaiming old lumber, seem t o be said as if "prophetic". Folks who buy into that "prophecy" are out o f touch, also. Many salvagers have this or similar ideas/reasons for thei r salvaging old lumber, as well as strictly business reasons.
I've viewed several videos, regarding them and their business, and they are boring as heck. There's some reference to their, maybe, having a TV show , showcasing their work.... *seems Ridgid may be behind this effort. If th e (subsequent) show is as boring as they are, in the videos, folks will loo se interest, fast, if interest is developed, at all. The videos don't ins pire me to look forward to viewing a, likewise(?), TV show.
Also, I haven't seen any hint of details of the projects they make. I've s een the finished product, in the various videos, and I'm not too impressed with their construction, as for as I can surmise the construction. In one video, they state it takes a week to make a (simple, IMO) table. I think , each, the tables, I saw in the videos, should have taken 2 days (or less) to make. Sure, they're spending time collecting the lumber, but if they a re in business, their work should be producing simple(?) projects faster, t han what they state.
I'm just not that impressed with them, at least at this point.
Sonny
You can obtain (claro) walnut (up to 48"+ wide). Here are some 12/4 33-36" wide slabs:
Perhaps it's more about empowering people to get outside, reconnect with their hands and nature, and in doing so, embark on a life of great adventure. Like the folks at ReMade.
A bud and mine were scouring rural Piedmont VA area in the late '70s and early '80s for either stashed and long-forgotten or unused lumber sawn and stored for the time "got a round tuit" that so often never comes. We found all kinds of hardwoods as well as much pine, some of which was just truly gorgeous stuff...walnut was quite common, less so cherry and the occasional chestnut log.
salvaged boards. True, there are fewer old trees available to be newly sawn. I'd think most old walnut wasn't sawn into thick boards, 2" and greater, so finding thick slabs, for reclaiming, is not as prevalent as thinner boards. ...
Back early on in colonial days and shortly after, walnut wasn't even really considered much of a desirable cabinet wood...much was used for structural timbers and even fence posts. We find that hard to imagine.
I'm sure I've told the story before of going to a reclaimed old schoolhouse in Lynchburg, VA, that were salvaging instead of razing for the specific purpose of getting a slate board for the kids playroom in the basement. I had no intended use for all the beams, etc., etc., in mind on going.
However, liking wood in general, wandered around through the stacks and discovered virtually all the structural timber was walnut with a few white and red oak tossed in here and there. Were as much as 24-ft, 4x12 to 2x16 roughsawn timbers there. I calculated something like 20,000 bdft altogether. The aforementioned friend was working thru Davis Paint in downtown Lynchburg in a shop area Mr Davis had set up for him making decoupage plaques were selling thru the store. I called him up and got him to get one of the store semi's up there and Mr Davis bankrolled us the $10,000 I'd offered...much of it was still in storage when I left Lynchburg some 10 yr later for TN.
the new storefront; the old store was downtown Lynchburg...
Almost 10 years ago Swingman and I and our wives visited his wife's aunt and uncle. He turned us on to a country guy that IIRC filled my tuck bed with walnut fence posts. IIRC $4 each. I still have a ton of that stuff and it is gorgeous.
I always have to remember that not everyone's interests are the same as min e when I see those shows. Having been in the trades for almost 45 years, I have to grit my teeth when I see home improvement shows, remodeling shows, house flipping shows, and even Mr. Silva. I have watched him do things lik e retro installing a skylight that is completely wrong. A quick call to the state/local roofers association would have led him to completely different procedures, starting with his choice of adhesives.
Anyway, I think TV shows like the Hobbs guys are made to have broad appeal, and even if they actually knew about old timber reclamation the show would be much more inviting if the average viewer went on a journey of discovery with them rather than to have someone snort their derision by saying they had known about reclamation for years.
I miss seeing that old wood and rarely do anymore. At one time when I was doing some work in the nearby OLD towns, I would tear into walls and ceilin gs and find beautiful Douglas Fir, chosen and milled because it was so stra ight. As a young man, I couldn't identify that stuff because the grain was so tight and close and the lack of knots threw me off. But when it was cu t, some of it still had that wonderful pine perfume, almost 100 years later .
I worked on homes that had some kind of hard yellow pine for flooring (ther e are a couple that were harvested here in Texas that were favored for floo ring) that folks covered with carpet. As the neighborhoods changed and the old folks moved out, the flooring was revealed, and in many cases the floor ing was sanded, lightly stained, and finished. I found it odd as the upsca le houses I worked in had white oak flooring, not pine. An old timer that was in his 80s in the 70s told me that the SYP was hard and durable, and wo re as well as the oak, but was less than half the price. So SYP was used f or flooring, it was that hard.
To bear that out, there are a couple of old, old saloons around here that h ave SYP flooring installed in the late 1890 and turn of the century. Same with a few old "restored" churches. As old as it is, it is wearing fine. That kind of old growth, super hard pine simply hasn't been available for y ears.
I have tried to figure out how to reclaim any kind of wood from my remodels /repairs that have the old growth stuff used as part of the build, but thos e old houses were usually so overbuilt that they have too many nail holes t o be of any value. When I was building water bed frames to help my income a few decades ago, I learned that a few nail holes are charming. Too many, and the project looks like it was made from damaged crating.
Robert
what do they do with the wood
that is the real measure of their deed
and as other posts say it is not some new original idea
but this seems to be a common theme across many endeavors with those younger that have no idea of what has come before
so many things redone that have already been done and even considered obsolete are now considered amazing and ground breaking
On 04/14/2017 1:47 PM, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote: ...
The S TX native pines in the SYP classification were/are loblolly, shortleaf and longleaf. Shortleaf and loblolly are both roughly 700 lbf Janka hardness while longleaf is one of the hardest SYP at nearly 900 lbf. By comparison, the most common oaks for flooring are from 1000 (southern red) to 1300 (northern red) to about 1350 for white oak.
So, they're really not nearly as hard as the oaks but are quite hard in comparison to the white pines (eastern or western) or sugar pine that are in the 380-420 range. Given that, it is still very serviceable flooring and much was indeed used for the purpose all over, not just in TX. The floors in the old farmhouse here are SYP (1-1/4" strip) as is all the framing and sheathing as well as all the interior woodwork. It is also first-growth, very fine grained and "hard enough". :)
I (think I) know the FPL hardness numbers are on fresh specimens; I don't know of lab data on this age material; would be interesting to know...
We're in process of updating the house here; nothing been done since folks redid back in late '70s/early '80s so getting a little worn...part of what we intend to do is pull the carpet out of some areas and refinish the original floors...
Speaking of which, in classic thread drift, another issue is that dad had replaced the original 3-1/8" siding (also SYP) with steel siding. It survived the hail, but now the paint has failed and while it has been repainted at least twice, it's a losing battle now and I'd like to revert to something that looks more original than the 8" lap...I'm not that eager to go back to wood for the painting issue but I see a Hardie-board 12" wide plank with 4-plank simulated that in pictures doesn't look bad. You have any experience with it and/or other ideas/suggestions?
When did the barn restoration had a couple thousand linear feet of the
3" siding run to patch in where needed; it was unavailable any more in anything narrower than 5". Wasn't too bad; roughly $1/ft (linear) --> $4 /sq-ft but again that gets into keeping it painted...altho guess we're getting to age that only a couple more times and it'd be somebody else's worry... :)
A couple of thoughts.
First, I haven't seen steel siding fail unless it was neglected. That bein g said, it was never used much around here, and our weather is heavy rains for a few months, then drought. Hard to screw metal up around here except for surface rust. There are plenty of farming burgs around here that have tractors and cars under the old oak tree that are untouched for 50 or so ye ars, some more.
But if the siding was topped with latex or not prepped properly, that is a problem, too. When in doubt, I call Sherwin Williams technical division to get the right finish and the details on prep. You may be beyond that. But personally, I wouldn't want to take off the st eel siding just because of all the work.
I have back to different places where I have enameled steel doors, handrail s, etc., and 10 years later they have a bit of chalk from the UV exposure, but the surfaces are still fine. So I use an "at least" 10 year life for m y metal finishes, and would anticipate 15 for something like siding.
Second, to put any siding on, you will have to take the metal off, put a mo isture barrier up, then follow the manufacturer's instructions. 99% of Hard ie is installed incorrectly. Don't believe me? Go to the manufacturer's s ite, they have explicit instructions.
I personally will not put up the 12" planks. It is a product I cannot warr ant. Here in S. Texas, it just doesn't work well. It sags under its own w eight after installation, it is harder to install, and any tiny mistake you make (say you spall out behind a nail) and you will have a sag or the sidi ng will open up. To compound that problem, most of the single floor houses around here built post 60s have walls on 24" centers which is not enough t o hold that siding up. Think about it... a 12" piece of cement board 12' l ong that has ONLY SEVEN nails to hold it up across all twelve feet! And th en too, with this product there is a lot of waste.
So I put up the narrower Hardie planks. The other good news about the narr ower style is that you can sheath a wall with OSB, and while you need to hi t studs, you can put as many nails in the siding as you need to make yourse lf happy, including nailing in the face of the siding from time to time if you get a bump or open spot.
As a sidebar, I put a product very similar to this up on a garage about 15 years ago:
It came primed, I put it on over Thermoply, and painted it with 2 coats of an SW premium satin enamel. It looks great! I loved the install. Not too messy, covered a lot of area very quickly, didn't have to worry about nail depth, and any nail holes or cracks caulked up and disappeared when we pai nted. No special tools needed. I have a utility nail gun for siding/fenci ng/etc., that I used. But I could have easily used a framing gun with an a djustable tip (or good compressor) to shoot it on with galvanzied 6d or 8d.
There are a lot of variations on that product some 12" wide, some thinner, some shorter in length. Now they make it that is fungus resistant, mildew resistant, insect resistant, and is very stable even in humid conditions. I liked the fact the product I installed had a lot of definition to the fa ce, and it was thick enough that it didn't follow every little bump in the wall when installed. Best of all for me, my client told me he just hoses it off once in a while and it looks great. I painted immediately after insta llation, my only prep besides caulking joints and filling holes was to blow off the siding with a nozzle to get the dust off, taking care to brush the joints a bit.
A good paint job on Hardie board should get at least 10 years with good pai nt, but too many times they fail prematurely. Often the product is not sto red correctly (you won't know this...)and it will suck water into the board . When you paint the moist board, the paint will not bond properly and the finish will fail long before it should. If you wind up using ANY cement b oard, I would advise to go to the Hardie site and download the pdf for inst allation and follow it closely.
Robert
On 04/20/2017 3:31 PM, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote: ...
division to get the right finish and the details on prep.
the steel siding just because of all the work.
...
Thank for the considered input, Robert; appreciate it muchly.
As for "neglected", is not that what everybody does with siding once it's up? :) This is, if you recall, far SW KS which is hot, mostly dry with mucho wind and blowing dirt often entrained with same...this was put on in the late 70s and it looked pretty good for at least first
20-25 yr; I don't recall when dad first had it repainted; it had been done a second time not too long before we came back after he passed in spring '99 and it's got much that is back to bare metal again. There is no rust that I've seen and I've no data on what was used nor what prep work was done before. I strongly suspect that part was shirked as it was a local handy-man guy who did the work and he was, I think from what I saw of what he was still supposedly finishing when we came back, pretty-much incompetent.In large part, I'm wanting the present steel removed simply for appearances--I want the house to look much more like the old 4-square it is/was when finished in 1916 when it had 3" Pattern 106 T&G. As noted, I had to have some of it run when did the barn as it is simply not obtainable any longer other than 5". I was thinking of the wide simply owing to 12"/4 --> 3" which gives the appearance factor.
I strongly agree w/ the weight but again, this isn't new construction, it's 100-yo SYP all on 16" centers so that's not an issue. I also would remove the existing simply to be able to use a modern wrap as well; iirc there was paper put down over the sheathing with a little insulation but I wasn't here when that part of the remodel was done; I've only seen a couple pictures taken while it was partially completed and they were not pictures of the project but it just happens to be in the background for a snapshot. I did the kitchen cabinets and some other interior finish work but the exterior was completed by then...
...
I've seen some other manufactured product as you say and looks interesting, indeed. There's nobody in town that carries anything but the absolute most basic of things but there is a collection of all the box stores plus an ABC distributorship in Garden City which is only 66 mi; think I'll head up that way and see what some of these actually look like in person.
I think I've given up on the cement-board idea, though, simply for the installation and the fact that there are just too many complaints that the prepainted just doesn't hold up any longer than I'd expect of a normal paint job. I did find a steel siding (don't recall manufacturer now) that is 12"/4 bar that would fix my wide spacing look I just do not like but it would still have the funky corner detail and all that just doesn't "look right" on a 100-yo farm house imo.
Again, thanks for the input...I'll probably post back some further ruminations on the project as it comes together...I'm still fussing over how to add on a porch onto the porch that was closed in when folks did the remodel but left us with nothing but a set of steps and no weather protection for the occasional time when it does actually rain...I can't raise the roof line on it to get additional width without having to also raise lower edge of 2nd story windows and they're original leaded glass which don't want to lose, either...
...
One of the prime reasons was considering the cement board is the higher fire resistance vis a vis wood. I don't know how much (if any) of Dad's thinking was influenced by that; I think primarily he was looking for low-maintenance and something that would stand up against the frequent serious hail we have...the latter it has done admirably.
I've mentioned before, but at the risk of repeating it, we're sitting in the middle of several miles in every direction of native grass in mostly unbroken sections. If you saw anything of the massive fire outbreak in TX, OK panhandles and KS in first week of March, that'll give you an idea of the concerns we have every year before spring rains finally arrive.
When this was all actively farmed (and Dad hadn't yet retired when the previous work on the house was done), that wasn't such an issue as there were breaks of fallow ground that aided in containing any fires that did get started instead of there being this expanse of fuel as now have when so much ground was put back into grass beginning in the early-mid 90s with the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).
So, I don't think the fire danger was much on his mind then, but certainly something that will stand up to the the hail while vinyl simply gets shredded regularly around here, even the "new, improved" varieties so beside it looking like vinyl, it's just not on the radar.
Theoretically, the steel siding should last forever. Sadly, it took years for the now available finishes to come around, and by that time steel sidin g had see its day. On came thick gauge, thin gauge and medium gauge alumin um, and worse, vinyl. The thick gauge aluminum was the best of the lot. I paint some if it now and then, but not much of the good stuff was installe d.
We have the same problem with vinyl here, it just doesn't hold up. The hail storms we had last year in aggregate caused about 2.6 BILLION dollars in d amage to houses, vehicles and structures. It was anywhere from marble size d to softball sized, and in some cases the softball stuff drove all the way through roofs into the living areas of the house.
So the upshot is this: Hardie siding took a lot of damage, some of it shat tered, some was hit repeatedly enough to break it and it fell off the walls . You already know what the vinyl looks like from your own experience. Bu t the fiberboard held up, marked with a few scuffs. It is so dense and so dead that the hail just bounced off.
They make a lot of different patterns of that stuff, and some Lowe's stores handle it. I know how frustrating it is to be in your shoes as our "littl e town" is blossoming to about 2 million including its metropolitan area, a nd we have exactly two places that carry it. BTW, when I put this material on on last time I did use the cementitious 1x4 trim. It was on the entrywa y of a house, and I used this stuff and it looked great when painted. Note the crack about using it to replace Masonite and Hardie. Since it comes i n 16 foot lengths (!!) you can fly through and installation.
Sort through this page and you can see examples of the different profiles a nd finished product. I understand that it might not be feasible to get it where you are, but I am just pointing out that this a a long way from the o ld masonite paper crap we used to use.
Keep us in the loop. I will e interested to see where you and on this and what your experience is with the final product.
Robert
Hardie siding can come pre painted with a first coat, just adding that can be a time saver. Unlike some here I enjoy some plumbing stuff, but painting a house nope not one bit.
On 04/21/2017 1:44 AM, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote: ...
Thx again, Robert. I guess you're basically saying other than the factory-primed products or to go back to steel, there really isn't as durable a prefinished material as the advertising would have you believe I think is what I'm reading between the lines...which isn't that surprising methinks.
The original profile is #106 in the standard mill books (eastern and western) as shown at excepting where they now show from 4" up, it was 3-1/8". The narrower is more pieces/work but really has the "old timey" look that just isn't captured with the wider profiles (at least imo which is the one that counts :) ). I may end up with 4" out of accommodation with cost, but I really don't want to get wider than that--I never liked the 8" on the steel siding dad put on from the beginning, but wasn't my call, then, either! :)
Some about the house a classmate took when had a HS reunion evening out as well as some of the barn refurb/reroof and a few during an exceptionally good haying season for good measure...not sure if I did the sharing thingie right or not...it worked for me but not sure it's public for other users...
I have to replace the Hardie Plank on the South side of my house (installed by a moron) and am considering the pre-painted stuff. It certainly would save time but it's about 40% more expensive than the primed stuff. That seems like a lot to ask for a coat of paint.
Get an estimate from a painter, then you will know if it is worth it.
I have used both types. Time is money.... but Hardie requires a special type of primer that will stick to this type material. Not that this is a problem but if it is not right, the paint may fail. Preprimed, you know it is the correct coating.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.