Barn board wall and its weight

A year ago I picked up a few truck loads of reclaimed maple boards for one of my projects: a barn board (ish) accent wall.

The boards are about 1" thick (rough sawn). I'm going to joint/plane, sand and finish them with Osmo oil. I have 3 colors to create a random color pattern.

For now I have to decide how far I want to plane the boards down, since I'm not sure how much weight I should/can add to the existing wall.
My wall is made of 2x6 (probably since it's an exterior wall). These studs are covered with 1/2" OSB that I painted black.

I have two options:

1. plane each board as much as needed to make them look nice and smooth, each board will have slightly different thickness. This is okay because it can have a rustic look.
2. plane all boards to 1/2" to reduce the weight. It will cost me about 10 times more time and a lot of wear on my planer blades.

I did some tests and figured out that the weight per square ft will be 2 lbs when I plane each board down to 1/2".
When I just plane each board as much as needed, the weight will double so it will be ~4 lbs per square ft.

My wall is approximately 200 square ft, which means the total weight would be 400 lbs (at 1/2") or 800 lbs (at ~1").

I hope this all makes sense. Please let me know what you think!

I wouldn't worry for a minute about that amount of weight on an exterior 2x6 wall.  Imagine the weight of the roof, insulation, snow, ceiling, etc that is bearing down on that wall.  A paltry 800 lbs spread out on the wall is only a couple % of what it's designed to handle.  Go for it!

Sounds good, it would save me a ton of work!

If you can fit them solidly between the roof trusses or whatever it has, and the foundation, sill, whatever it has on the bottom, they could actually become structural and strengthen it rather than weaken it.

I agree with Mike, do worry about it.
But if you want rustic, why are you planing them down?

John C Daley wrote:I agree with Mike, do worry about it.
But if you want rustic, why are you planing them down?

The boards are too rough and need work, otherwise it will be a big mismatch with the rest of the room.

The boards are 20 years old and were outside for 2 years before I bought them. I'm basically re-creating a barn board style/look with different colors of finishing oil.

It is kind of a shame to use maple for that...  Might you be able to clean up the maple and sell it for more money than some barn boards would cost?  Maybe not...  But it is really nice hard wood.

Mike Haasl wrote:It is kind of a shame to use maple for that...  Might you be able to clean up the maple and sell it for more money than some barn boards would cost?  Maybe not...  But it is really nice hard wood.

Oh yes, the quality of the wood turned out to be extremely good. Last year I was just looking for reclaimed wood and someone contacted me that he wanted to sell his old boards. It turned out to be maple, it was just a coincidence. There's some companies that use maple for a barn board look as well, see link* at the bottom.

First I bought 1 truckload and when I found out how beautiful these boards were on the inside, I bought the whole pile and ended up with 8 truckloads at about 30 cents (CAD) per board foot.

The boards have been drying in my garage since and are now ready to get processed: joint, plane, rip cut, cross cut, sand an oil. I'm using random lengths and 3", 4", 5" and 6" widths.

And indeed, when my wall is done (and I'm happy with the result) I'm probably going to take some pictures and advertise them. I have way more than I need for myself and it would be a nice job on the side.

* barnwoodcanada dot ca

Great find!

One tip...  If you have multiple sets of planer blades, as they get nicks from nails/debris, interchange them for another run.

1st use blades A1 and A2
then use B1 and B2
then use A1 and B2 since their nicks probably don't line up
Then A2 and B1 for the same reason

Mike Haasl wrote:Great find!

One tip...  If you have multiple sets of planer blades, as they get nicks from nails/debris, interchange them for another run.

1st use blades A1 and A2
then use B1 and B2
then use A1 and B2 since their nicks probably don't line up
Then A2 and B1 for the same reason

^^^  This is excellent advice.  Reclaimed wood will dull your planer blades in a fraction of the time as new wood.  Not just from the dirt and nails, but minerals also get absorbed into the wood as it ages.  Depending on the age it can get very abrasive.  Try to avoid letting your blades get too dull.  I have had fires start in my dust collector tubes... don't do that.

Also, if you can scan it with a metal detector first, you will do yourself and your blades a huge favor.  

For now I don't have multiple sets of blades... I'm using a new DeWalt DW734 and I hope it will last me a while