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How to Salvage Old Barn Wood

video How to Salvage Old Barn Wood

Learn the basics of salvaging old barn wood for new uses such as furniture, hardwood floors, and other home and architectural elements.

10 comments

Jun 11, 2009. 5:39 PMMrOctober67 says:

i bet you could start a pretty good business selling the wood and starting a furniture shop with the wood

Nov 12, 2009. 11:00 AMTheGreatBeagle says:

I agree, unfortunately, however, you're not the first kid on th block to have it. There is even an outfit in Vermont that travels pretty good distances to find barns, etc., to take down. They truck the salvage back to New England where they have large sheds for dry storage and commercial grade milling machines. Not to rain on your parade, but I thought you should be warned that there is competition out there.

Anote source: A friend worked for a "hazardous waste abatement" company with a contract to demolish old factory and mill buildings on our nearby river front. Many of these were built in the 1800s, and he told me there were lots huge, really huge, timbers as well as floor planking going to waste. He was an engineering sort and he would have agreed with you. However, he pointed out there was an ample "supply" at one end of the chain, and a pretty good "demand" at the other, there was no transportation in between. Too bad; if you were looking for just "old wood" some of those abandoned industrial buildings had stuff that would make barn framing look like match sticks.

Feb 23, 2008. 10:54 AMJamesW says:

I'm on 56k, damnit...I wanted to see this.

Nov 12, 2009. 10:58 AMsaabstorey says:

your local library should have some public computers with fast connections. if not, try the library at your local community college.

Jul 14, 2008. 8:22 PMstatic says:

You would think that someone with the name progressivefarmer would realize their are still a whole lot of people for whom dial up is their ONLY option to use the internet. ;) Sl...O...W dial up at that Progressive farmer grab some stills from the vid and make an 'ible that everyone can use. You can always embed the youtube video for those fortunate enough to have faster connections. James you can alwayd use a video downloader to download the video and go do something else while the thing down loads.

Jul 14, 2008. 8:33 PMstatic says:

Next time I run across them, I'll try to remember to take photos of the home shop built tools used to tear down buildings. They where built out of salvage oil field sucker rod, but cold rolled rod from the iron supply should work as well. There is a Crescent brand of nail puller that pull nails driven flush to the wood you can get behind to pry loose. Cousins of mine tore down a wooden grain elevator, man was I glad it was too far away for my dad to volunteer me.

Jan 9, 2008. 11:39 AM

lebowski says:

I just wish I had a barn to salvage and a project to use the wood for!

Jan 7, 2008. 9:01 PMthewoodcarver says:

Very good video , I took down a tank house built in the 1890's for the wood .I cleaned it all up very nicely and started to run it in my plainer and hit a nail , if you use the found wood always check it for metal ....Harbor Fright sells this wand that works well for fiding nails and such

Jan 7, 2008. 6:30 PM

robbtoberfest says:

Very cool! I'm ready to dismantle.

Jan 7, 2008. 5:09 PMGorillazMiko says:

Awesome! That's one pretty big barn, have you seen the Instructable on a Giant Swing, or something like that? That would be cool to have one of those in this huge barn you have here. Awesome quality.