[AT] OT Barn floor question

Mark Greer greerfam at raex.com
Thu Oct 21 18:14:17 PDT 2004


We planed a bunch of hickory for my dad's kitchen cabinets this spring.This
hickory had a lot of small knots in it and was not the straight grained
stuff you typically see in commercially built cabinets. All that different
grain in Hickory is a bear to plane (tears out a lot) so we resawed it on
the Unisaw and then used a 24" wide drum type panel sander to finish it to
the exact thickness. It was a little more work but it all came out near
perfect and it made a really neat looking kitchen.
Mark

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robinson" <robinson at svs.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 12:10 PM
Subject: RE: [AT] OT Barn floor question


>          Hi Larry:
>
>          A friend of mine does a large amount of restoration mill work for
> the state of Indiana on historic sites. When he made a new water wheel for
> the mill at the old Metamora Canal site they had him build it out of black
> walnut. Yellow poplar (tulip) makes a good weatherboard siding even
> unpainted but in that case the edges are all protected. Otherwise I
> consider it an indoor wood. The three old barns here were framed (post and
> beam) with sycamore which was sawn here on the farm. It is fine for
covered
> use but it will not weather well at all. They were sided with southern
> yellow pine shiplap siding. It is deteriorating badly now but has been
> there for 80 years or more.
>          Last Sunday son Scott was moving some dirt for me with a large
> backhoe to eliminate a bank of dirt along the road south of my house
across
> the little creek. The bank was about 3 to 4 feet high and he dug out the
> feet of several black locust fence post that my father and I put in there
> 50 years ago. The part above the ground was gone but the stubs in the
> ground were quite solid. We are getting rid of the bank since it is
> impossible to mow when we mow the roads and is dangerous when working the
> edge of the field. I came a lot closer to dropping a my Super MTA off of
> there one day this summer than I really like. I had already planned to
make
> a cut through it for an entry drive to what will be a horse lot with a new
> portable run-in shed. It just makes more sense to eliminate the whole
bank.
> We didn't do all of it Sunday, it  runs about 200' and would require a lot
> of moving the backhoe for each little section. Scott is going to bring a
> tracked excavator home next week and he can just keep moving it along as
he
> goes. He will also dig a well pit for us where we are replacing a hand
pump
> with a regular electric water system. He is going to use it to do some
> digging for a neighbor as well.
>          In the next few weeks he will bring home a small walking trencher
> and we will install some short  water lines to the horse stalls at the
west
> barn and some drain tiles under the floor of the east barn (Cubfest was
> next to that one) which is getting 5 horse stalls. Still later he will
> bring home a big trencher and we will run some longer water lines to some
> pasture locations and install a few more field drains to get rid of some
> lingering wet spots.
>          Osage Orange (hedge) sawed well on my saw mill when I was doing
> that but it was really tricky to plane. The blades had to be very sharp
and
> the cut very very light or it would pull out chunks of wood sometimes as
> deep as 3/16". Much of it was almost a burl. It sure is pretty when it all
> works though. I don't know how long a really good Osage Orange post would
> last, I don't think any good ones put in during the last 200 years have
> ever rotted out yet...   :-)
>          Cypress is not too common here but a good bit is brought in for
> board fences since it holds up well. I believe much of it may come from
> Southeastern Kentucky.
>
>          Rambling as usual...
>
>
> Francis Robinson
> Central Indiana, USA
> robinson at svs.net




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