# How To Re-saw barn beams



## Sam_Fox (Aug 17, 2009)

Recently I gained access to a "pile" of old oak barn beams that were salvaged from a barn 30 years ago (It was over 100 years old when they demo'd it). They have been stored indoors for that period of time, so they are certainly dry. I ran out and bought myself a 14" delta band-saw (used) with the 6" re-saw extension and outfitted it with the Kreg fence with re-saw guide, the lumber wizard metal detector (which does me no good as I can't pull any of the nails out anyway as they just break off) I quickly learned that this was not an easy task and that the saw was grossly under powered… so another hundred and fifty bucks later and I have myself a 2 hp Baldor powering through the beam. The first beam was so heavy that I had to cut it at 48" just to be able to lift it (barely) by myself. I was able to work it through the saw at just over 1" thick slabs and found that it is extremely difficult to cut a straight board. Thinking it through now, it seems that i would need a sled to run the beam through the saw to cut off the first pass to get a straight edge, but that just doesn't seem like a reasonable task either.

Has anyone attempted this? Was this a colossal waste of my time and money? I know that these boards are riddled with nails, so i don't think any mill would want to saw them for me with out them costing me an arm and a leg in blades. Also, because they are so dry, it will be difficult to get more than a few decent boards out of each beam as they have some pretty big splits.

If I am not straying off the path of sanity, then any words of encouragement would be great too. ; )

thanks.

Sam.

Also, love the site… lots of inspiration here!!


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## davidpettinger (Aug 21, 2009)

Check in your area to see if there is any place that rent portable saw mills. I know that they are available here in the lower 48. They use a chainsaw so you do loose some with the wide kerf and the rough edge, but a chain saw blade can take some abuse from small bits of iron. On the bigger pieces, try digging around the iron with awls and picks to help loosen them. Remember, they've been in there for over 100 years. They just need some persuasion. :>)


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## skidiot (Jun 2, 2008)

I resaw a lot of oak cribbing. They are small 4×4 max. You didnt say how big you timbers are. I joint 2 adjoining sides first. So then I have 2 nice flat faces to work with. One face goes down on the table the other against the rip fence. Works great. You stuff may be way to big for any of this to be practical


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## Sam_Fox (Aug 17, 2009)

I will call a couple rental outfits just to check, but a few people I talked to say no one carries portable mills for renting.

Unfortunately they are 8"x10" (between 10' and 16' long), which is much to big for my 6" jointer. I wonder if I could attach a straight edge to one side of the beam to run along the fence which should give me a pretty straight cut.


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## Chiefk (Jan 28, 2008)

Sam, I believe we must have bought wood from the same place. I too have some old white oak beams from an old barn. I wanted to use the wood to build a Mission styled bed. I checked the beams with my lumber wizard and discovered several of the beams had nails. I am struggling with coming up with a way to remove the nails. They do not come out easily. On the beams without nails, I used my 14" Rikon Delux bandsaw with a drift master fence to resaw the boards with great results. The resawn wood is really beautiful, but I still need a method to remove the nails without causing too much damage. Good luck and should you find a way to remove the nails and minimize the damage let me know. pkennedy


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## roman (Sep 28, 2007)

I bought a BIG OLD BARN, took it down and sent almost all the beams to a saw mill.

I think he charged me 400 bucks to have it all re-sawn, including pick-up and delivery but I'm pretty sure I paid him 650 because I didnt think 400 was enough. he also cut alll the hand hewn sides off, numbered and sequenced them so I could wrap them around newer structural beams.

Even at 650…..................that was cheap. The tally of white pine, ash, elm, hemlock was around 50,000 bfm.


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## Sam_Fox (Aug 17, 2009)

I sure have been kicking myself lately as the 14"Rikon deluxe bandsaw was on sale at my local woodcraft before Christmas for about 50 bucks more than I have invested in my 15 year old Delta… I have been successful at cutting through most of the small nails that get in my way with out damaging the blades too much on the band saw. My main worry of course is the jointer and planer…

My main issues are the weight of the pieces, this seems to be primarily a two man job, and also the ability to get flat boards… I think later today I might try to 'fasten' a long straight piece of 3×4 ash I have sitting around and see if that helps with the flat board issue.


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## dirtclod (Oct 31, 2007)

I agree with rick3ddd…a bandsaw mill is typically how this is done on beams of that size. I would typically charge .25/bf + blades + nail removal. They're too big to be tackled by most anything less. But if you're determined enough…

You can remove those nails by first drilling small holes around them. Those you have already cut through can be punched out the other side.

If there's one big split from end to end you can orient it so it will be isolated in one board.

roman,
"Even at 650……...............that was cheap. The tally of white pine, ash, elm, hemlock was around 50,000 bfm." 
Tell me he didn't mill 50,000 for $.013 bf!


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## roman (Sep 28, 2007)

dirtclod

no, he milled almost all the post and beams (timber framed structure) where the beams were compremised structurallly, from felling the building/barn. All the really good beams I saved for mantles/fireplace, and smaller posts and beams ( 8×8 ) or less were re-used into other post and beam buildings. The tally of all the wood, including barn boards, flooring, interior walls and posts and beams was around 55K bfm.

I'm guessing but I think he milled around 5,000 bfm plus minus, for 650…...........still a good deal from where I sit.


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## tnwood (Dec 13, 2009)

It is better to move the saw and not the beams due to the weight. The contracting of a bandsaw mill is a good option. There are also Chain Saw Mills that are relatively inexpensive for your own use. I have a RipSaw portable bandsaw mill that would work great and it is for sale in TN. A RipSaw is a small hand held bandsaw mill driven by a chainsaw power head. Most mills won't want to touch the beams if they are known to have nails.


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## Sam_Fox (Aug 17, 2009)

Thanks for the info guys… i was able to cut a few more boards nice a straight using a 12" pine board fastened to the beam for the first cut to follow the fence… but I missed a couple nails (even with the lumber wizard) and let me tell you, hitting a nail on the long edge sure kills a blade FAST… luckily I hit the nail near the end so i only had to burn through 3 inches of oak… what a pain!!! I may invest on temporarily owning a Ripsaw (or something like it)... i'll keep ya posted.

thanks again everyone.

Sam


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## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

I get the heebie jeebies just reading about trying to resaw massive beams with nails in them. NOT A GOOD IDEA!!


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## hootr (Mar 28, 2009)

check out Gary Fixler's blog
i think it's the best resaw jig i've seen, tho i still haven't had time to build it
i don't know how to link it
you'll find it on his home page
good luck


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## oldwoodsale (Apr 4, 2010)

Hi Sam and others. I Just found this thread and can offer some info I've learned over the past couple of years on this exact subject. Our company purchased the remains of an old whiskey distillery and we have 70,000 bf to cut. If you want you can view the particulars of the project on oldwoodsale.com By training I'm a mechanical engineer and have been researching how to cut old barn beam. The vintage of the beams we have are about 120yrs and oak, very hard, lots of old cut nails. After many attempts pulling the nails is NOT worth the time and damages too much wood. As you have stated here the nails snap off and are about a quarter inch below the surface of the wood. So grabbing them is not possible unless you mill out all around the nail, then half the time is just snaps off again. SO cutting throught the nails is a must. We started building a special heavy band saw for this purpose. The KEY is the blade. Normal wood blades on a band mill do work, we tested them. BUT they do not survive even after a few nails. I looked all over the net and there are blades made for this purpose….sort of. Do a search for KRON brand Pallet blades. They are manufacuted for cutting up old pallets. Not as big as barn beams… but might work. I called a reseller and they can make them in sizes to order but they are a beefy blade and might not fit. I have not tested this blade yet, I'm sure there will be a learning curve on speed and wood feed rate. As I get more info I'll pass it along.


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## oldworld124 (Mar 2, 2008)

You might give a Lenox band saw blade dealer and ask them if they have a blade that will work. They have a lot of specialized blades for wood and metal cutting. I am thinking a hybrid blade will probably work.


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## oldwoodsale (Apr 4, 2010)

John, Yea I am going to try a Lenox BSB first. I cut a lot of metal and I get best results from a 5 to 8 tpi blade with a staggered rake. The blade is made for tubing and its very durable. I tested one on a piece of oak/nails and went through like butter, although it was only a few inches thick which was the limitation of the saw. What is your definition of a hybyrd blade?


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## millmgr (Nov 17, 2009)

A friend of mine owns a reclaimed lumber operation. He uses a portable band mill to cut the timbers. If the board is covered in nails on one face, he cuts the first slab off to remove the bulk of the nails rather than try to dig them out. Then they go through a metal detector to identify the remaining nails. They dig out what they can. Then the timber is cut to boards and sent again to the metal detector. Any remaining nails are dug out or punched through. Then unuseable pieces and bad ends are removed and the stock put on sticks and dried. If the dried boards are going to be milled in a shop with a dust collection system, they must go through the metal detector again to insure no nails cause sparks and cause an explosion


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## oldworld124 (Mar 2, 2008)

My idea of a Hybrid Blade for rough re-sawing wood is one that has deep gullets, a bi-metal blade or one with carbide teeth that will last a long time. It would be similar to the Lenox Sawzall blade that is used for nail embedded wood. The deep gullet is a must because of the need to clear the sawdust from the blade before it re-enters the wood on the next pass. The blade will keep cooler and last longer. The fewer teeth per inch the better. More teeth means less gullet depth. However, for cutting nails, more teeth per inch helps. Cutting metal requires a slower speed and cutting wood requires a faster speed. It is the search for the Hybrid that will achieve both goals. Cut the material at a reasonable speed and have longevity. This is not easy to do when looking at re-sawing 8" and larger chunks of wood.


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## oldwoodsale (Apr 4, 2010)

Hi folks, Still building our special purpose band saw to cut old timbers that contain old cut nails. Here are a few youtube videos. They show how we are milling the pullies for the unit. We are doing this on the cheap so we converted some 45lb lifting plates for the pullies. So far they worked well. Should be ready for our frst cutting test in about a week. Will post some more vids and let you know how the different blades worked. 



 the second one is


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## oldwoodsale (Apr 4, 2010)

Hey Everyone, Finally got some data on cutting barn beams containing nails. We have built our hybird saw and run a few beginning test. So far so good. We cut 11inch x 2.25inch beams. These are 120yr old oak. Very dry and hard. We tried to pull all the nails for these initial test but still managed to miss one nail and it did not cause a problem. We are running a Lenox Palletmaster blade 5-8tpi, 1.25wide, .042thick. Running the blade at 1000fpm with a 5hp electric motor going through an 8:1 gear reduction. The feed rate of the wood is rather slow for now about 6 to 8ipm. At these settings we are pulling about 7amps on the motor. Which is about 50% max. Still some more redesign needed for small improvements but we are getting better. Here are some videos on the saw and our initial cut , this is how the saw is built 



 This one is the our initial cut 



. Any comments are welcom. Hope the info helps.


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## Nomad62 (Apr 20, 2010)

I ran a chainsaw mill for a while, they are unuseable in my opinion; those chains are just too expensive to repair. Even old nails damage/remove teeth. The answer is indeed a blade that will cut metal, and to go slow enough to let it while not burning the wood. By the way, I have sold wood with nail pieces in them because the woodworker thought they added character. I also saw a multi-thousand dollar black walnut table that had bullets in the legs as the tree had been a target. Food for thought.


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## Swede (Feb 19, 2010)

I have sharpened a lot of Nail Buster blades used to cut pallets up. They have a special carbide that is made to cut through nails. I had to braze the teeth back on these blades all the time as they kept breaking off.

I think the idea of using a metal cutting blade on your band saw should work if you can regulate the speed.

If you setup a table in front and behind your bandsaw you won't have to hold a heavy piece of timber.

Keep us informed of your progress.


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## sethC (Sep 24, 2012)

Lenox makes good metal cutting blades. I have used a chainsaw mill by Logosol a swedish brand. but that will give you a rough cut. I agree about contracting/ renting out the work to a bandsaw mill or sawmill with beams that size.


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## RussellAP (Feb 21, 2012)

Cross cut to length and build a garden wall with them. Don't try to cut nails with a BS, it'll just ruin the blade and the wood. 
If you're using or tried to use a 14 inch BS then I'm assuming the beams are about 6" or so. You wouldn't get much out of that anyway.


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