Recycled Lumber Takes a lot of Work to be Beautiful. 10 – steps in total!!!

Here are some images of all the work that goes into setting up some Lengths of Barnwood Material and corner samples that eventually go into a custom barnwood frame for your artwork or memorabilia.

First of all, we need to find a farmer willing to part with his material, and give us permission to go in and collect what we can use. The material needs to be fairly straight, solid, and without any rot or major staining. We mostly use the thicker 2×8 material from fence rails as this gives us three good edges on the final frame that don’t need any painting – that way you get all exposed edges of your frame showing real barnwood (no cut edges showing). It takes up a lot of material!
Third, all the nails need to be removed and we cut around all the bad spots, irreparable splits, holes etc.

Fourth, we need to cut the strips to size, often two per piece of lumber obtained.
Fifth, a rabbet has to be cut which can be done in either one or two steps. We make around 5 different profiles to accommodate different width moulding and the various heights.
Six, the lengths of moulding material need to be cleaned and brushed down and sprayed with a clear lacquer which prevents any further fading or staining, and limits flaking.

Seven, some of the pieces may need clamping and gluing of any splits or other repairs.
Eight, Sort the pieces according to colour (around 4-6 colours) and profiles.
Nine, make up corner samples to show the clients so they can see what looks best come time to design the framing package, price them out and also enter them into our POS.
Finally, Ten, Stack the samples according to sample number.