Started out stacking wood by the old barn years ago. Knowing that the barn was going to meet it's death some time in the future I decided that a new home for the wood was in order. The previous owner had left me with a pretty good mess on the old hog house foundation. Good reason to finally get it all hauled to the scrapers. Mission accomplished. Good thing to cuz several years later this is what I came home to. Clean up of old barn done and a new wood pile was in order. Cant stop there just yet. To be continued....
That old barn reminds me of my Great Great Aunt. She was in her 90's still living in the hills of KY overlooking the Ohio river in an old house, the only indoor plumbing was a hand water pump in the kitchen that went to the well, and she still had to go to the outhouse or use a chamber pot to do her business. She lived there until 2002 or so. Anyway, there was an old barn like that sitting on her property, and she used to tell us how good the wood was in it, since "her grandpa built that". It finally fell over a few years after she passed. Most of the wood was too hard to drive a nail into, but all it takes is a few main structure beams to rot and it's over with.
Gpa had a tool shed in Mn at the cabin that they used the trees cut on the property to build with. He said the tool shed was made of ash and nails couldn't be driven without pilot holes. How I miss that place.
There is a fantastic difference between old growth lumber and what is passed off as lumber (even #1 clear) today. The growth rings in most stuff now are so far apart there isn't much in the way of structural integrity ( load and span factors) as listed in my old books. heck the mills start 2x4's off at 1.75x3.75 before they are dressed.
That's one thing I miss about my old house all the wood was real and true to size. Hard as a rock to. No plywood or quick grow pine there.
What a shame you had to burn it. Some really good things come out of those old barns...like the tables I make from the old wood. I can't save them all, but at least I saved a few. That's a heck of a pile of wood you got there. Good looking stuff.
Thank you all for the compliments - definitely a lot of work, but the end results are worth it. I love those old barns - I wish they all could be saved. Once they are gone, they are gone forever. Sorry for hijacking your thread, Butcher.
No problem. I got a pile of the barn beams piled out back and before I burnt the thing I had already salvaged most if not all of the siding. The whole barn was made of local cedar and had just been left to a state of disrepair and in 2008 we had an F4 tornado that decided to cross paths with us with in about a quarter mile or so. I wish I could mill the remaining beams that I have but they are so full of hardware from years of scabbing on this and that it isn't going to be an easy task. It is not high on my priorities right now since there are other fish to fry right now.
The floor joists in my house are like that, true dimensional 2x12's made out of hard wood and hard as a rock. My house was only built in 1987, so I find it surprising it's built like that.
