What happens when you machine reclaimed timber?
When you pick up a piece of reclaimed wood for the first time, it may look a bit disappointing. Years of weathering, sun exposure, and a range of other interactions can cause it to go grey and worn, and sand, dirt, insects, and other plants can get lodged into the grain and take away that beautiful wood finish.
When we pick up our timber from around Sydney, much of it is in this condition – which we call undressed. After removing any nails, screws and other metal from the timber, we can then put it through our machinery, a process called dressing or surfacing the timber, and the result is like a magic trick. Just by taking away a few millimeters from the surface, that weathered finish is stripped away and the beautiful, original timber is revealed – having sat a fraction under the surface for all these years.
Below is a gallery of some pictures of the before-and-after process of timber machining for different timbers.
How do we machine reclaimed timber at Among The Trees?
We use a combination of four heavy-duty machines to dress and cut your timber to size.
After using a series of hand tools and a nail-finding magnet to remove any leftover metal, the wood is then ready. First, we’ll pass the timber through our jointer, which uses a fast-spinning blade to not only take off the surface of the timber, but flatten it at the same time. Using the jointer, we can remove any twists, bows, or bends that have developed in the wood over time, and have a flat, even surface.
After the jointer, the timber is then run through our thicknesser, which uses the jointed face as a reference and dresses the opposite side of the timber parallel. Using these two machines, we can turn a bendy, weathered piece of wood into a flat and square beam that’s dressed all round (or DAR, for short).
Finally, we can use our drop saw and table saw to cut the timber to length, or to rip it down the middle into multiple long boards or pieces.
The end result is a piece of wood ready for a new purpose and project. While some reclaimed timber is full of character - such as marks, weathering features, nail holes, and more, we also have a lot of timber that doesn’t have these features and looks brand new! Come in store to Among The Trees today to have a look at the wide range of timber available, and get something machined to order.
