Working with Reclaimed Wood

The short answer is Don't.  Unless you are super cheap (probably not as cost effective as you think), or like hard dirty work, or are some enviro-nazi that will only use previously killed trees.  There are some other reasons, of which mine is in there, but its a long story. Click Here to skip to the method I use to clean up reclaimed wood.

Back in 2010-2011 I built our dining room table.  I found a guy on Craigslist that used to live in Michigan, and when the auto industry tanked he moved down here to the oil industry.  While in Michigan he had taken down an ice house.  For those in the south, this is a place to store ice, cut from the lake (naturally occurring, not a reservoir), and stored with sawdust to help keep it from melting and sticking to its self it is not a rundown shack where you get drunk...at least that's not its primary purpose.  Most of this wood were dead-straight rift sawn oak 2"x4"s (2 inches by 4 inches...not nominal, real).  It was really great stuff.  There were also quite a few 1x12s of pine.  He even gave me two coffee cans of the original wrought nails.  The oak I cleaned up with some planes, and the tablesaw, resawed it to thickness and build the tabletop.  The pine I used to make the shell for my bar, the guts are a modified chest freezer.

Dining Room Table

Exposed Joinery, the feet and cleats are 4x4s

Bar from barn siding, tap handles have since been replaced with wood.

As I neared completion on the top I started to think about the trestle base.  My reclaimed oak pile that previously looked in exhaustible was now down to 1 long piece and a dozen 12-14" pieces I assume were blocking between studs.  After some panic and searching of Craigslist I found a guy selling "Reclaimed Oak 4x4s".  Coming off of the great wood score I figured these would be perfect for completing this table, and the subsequent building of my workbench.  I bought 20 of these 8-12' 4x4s, that apparently were used on truck beds to separate loads of pipe.  Turns out only about 2/3 of the boards were oak, there were 4-6 maple and a few cherry .No nail holes, no character, nothing.  Well, nothing but bow and crook and twist and warp and cracking and splitting.  All of which I only noticed once I was home.  Getting any square board of reasonable thickness along the full 8' was out, plus I didn't want 4 different species just for the top of my bench.  I ended up buying new soft maple for my bench, definitely worth it.  I got some usable pieces for the table legs, and used some for for a table for my friend. (Of which I forgot to take pictures)

These were stored away from other wood, some pieces had bugs, and they were covered in dirt, murder on blades.  My approah to using them was to take a handheld belt sander with 24 grit and clean off the exterior and bring down high spots.  I did this outside, wearing a respirator, and my snot was still black for a couple days.  So the rest of the wood sat unused taunting me.  Every so often I would think about using a piece for some small project, go scrap a little off, see a knot, split or something and put that off a little longer.

My Method:
Now in 2014 I have a much better understanding of square, usable wood, a scrub plane and a bandsaw.  The first thing I do is cut them down to just over the length I need, in this case ~40", this cuts the amount of twist in half.  Really the first thing you should do is remove any possibility of metal in the wood.  I did this a few years ago when I bought it, and Brady covers it pretty well.  Staring with the "prettiest" face I take the scrub plane to it, first removing the weathered layer, and then hogging of the high spots.  My scrub plane is an old (post-war) #5, with a 6" radius and its dull.  I think I sharpened it last year, so if you are concerned with having to get a nice sharp blade on a small radius, don't be. [Side note, I will be sharpening this again soon].

Selecting the flattest face to start on, using my bench as a reference

Hey look..its cherry

The beauty of this is I can take "shavings" that are thicker than 1/32".  This makes removing even severe twist pretty quick.  I work this face till it sits flat on my bench, with no rocking.  I take a few passes with the jointer plane to help it slide more consistently, then flip it over.  On the opposite side I take a pass or two with the scrub plane, then draw a straight line.  I do this to all the boards I'm dressing.  Then its to the bandsaw, and I freehand cut that line (remember the only flat side is on the table).

Cut the the line (the first face is on the bench)

A couple quick passes to make sure the second face is square to the first

Back at the bench I clean up the bandsawn face with the jointer plane, and make sure its 90* to the first face.  Again I tend to do the same operation for all the boards at once.  While I could go straight to the thickness planer, I think its best to use the bandsaw first.  I use the fence on my bandsaw putting the square corner into the fence, and cut of just enough to square the other two sides.  By adding this step at the bandsaw, your planer blades will last longer,  and you wont have to take hundreds of passes at the planer.  Yes, your bandsaw blade will dull but not as quick as your planer blades and its only passing though maybe a 1/32" of crud at the top of the board so its not that bad.

Dull planer knives avoided

After a couple passes through the t least 2 faces are square, preferably the sides you want to use/see.  From here is all about what your plan is.  I didn't want thefew times now, and its pretty fast, I went from (s)crap to "hey look cherry and maple"planer I go back to my bench to make sure things didn't get wonky somewhere in my process.  A couple quick passes with whatever plane is handy tends to take out and (very) minor wobble, and make sure a in an aftern full 3.5" so I resawed/ripped it to size at the bandsaw.  I let it sit for a few days on stickers to allow any weird remaining stresses to work their way out, its still ~1/8" over in all dimensions.  I've used this method a oon.  Though I will not be buying and more reclaimed wood for quite some time

Nice thick S4S cherry