Hello ALL. I am building an “Adobe Ranch” style custom home in San Diego and a key element is large exposed douglas fir beams, 12 X 14 and smaller. I have had some hand adzing done on many by Adobe Building Supply (abslumber.com for photos of their work)in Albuquerque. They apparently purchased newly milled stock in CA, shipped it to New Mexico, cut to size, hand adzed, and them shipped to me. I is now on my lot. A few problems: 1) it is “wet” and some sap is being released, 2) the hand adzed surface looks good but needs to be sanded beofre finising without elimianiting the hand adzing 3) I need to get these beamns in place within the next month.
So, questions: Best way to dry beams on the lot? How long to I need to dry before I can sand to about 600? Best sanding technique to preserve adzing? ( Plan to sand, then place beams, then finish several months later in construction process). Best finish to achieve low lustre, natural, aged, appearance?
Thanks for any advice,
Ed
Replies
Hi Ed.
I'm not sure this question is in our domain; you might get a better answer if you post in the Breaktime forum (link at the top of the page), which is hosted by Fine Homebuilding magazine. I think you'll find some folks there who have experience with post and beam construction.
Meanwhile, I'm going to move your post into our open forum folder and see if anyone else can help out with an answer.
Matt Berger
Fine Woodworking
Ed,
I think your aspirations have gotten a bit ahead of your building skills and knowledge.
There is no way to dry beams of that size in a hurry, and if they dry out too quickly they will crack and warp badly. From my experience with New England post and beam work, I would suggest that you keep them out of the sun and even keep them partially covered so that they don't self destruct. Next, try to get them in place in the building as quickly as possible but you will need to deal with the beams shrinking as much as an 3/4 of an inch over the next year or two as they dry out.
Probably the only way to sand the adzed surfaces will be by hand. You don't need to sand to 600, even furniture is only sanded to 150 or 180. I would wait as long as possible to sand, basically do it just before you are going to apply the finish.
For finishing you should probably apply a dilute coat of shellac, a 1 pound cut, to even out stain absorption of the wood and then apply a dilute stain, something like Minwax, a few days later. Once the color is good, a coat or two of Waterlox, which is an oil varnish mixture will give you a low luster finish.
As always, test out your finishing on test pieces before you go onto the real job. Left alone, the beams will darken naturally over time and will have a better color than anything you can get with a stain.
John White
Edited 6/22/2007 10:03 am ET by JohnWW
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