This morning we are anxiously awaiting a new shipment of Long Leaf Heart Pine beams from a 19th century textile factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts that is being torn down.
The warehouse in Mass. being torn down
I always keep my fingers crossed at this time because every shipment is unique and there are several variables that will determine if we’ve made a profitable purchase that will yield high quality flooring, stairway components, and cabinet stock, with the least amount of waste, for our New Orleans millwork projects.
- Color: Should be red versus yellow or white
- Density: Should have tight growth rings, 15-25+ rings per inch which indicates the beams were cut from old growth trees.
- Checking: How many cracks or splits are in the beams?
- Nails, Bolts & Spikes: All metal must be removed from the beams before milling can begin to protect our equipment as well as our team members. The more nails etc… in the beams, the more time, labor, and cost required to remove them. We remove any visible nails and then use hand held metal detectors to find any subsurface metal.
We work with several different demolition companies from Alabama to Maine but recently most of our heart pine is coming from Massachusetts. Heart Pine doesn’t grow that far north, but in the 1800s, during the later part of the Industrial Revolution, the Mid Atlantic and the South Eastern States supplied the timber to build the Northern factories. Our suppliers will send us photos and inventory list of their current projects via email and then we make a decision based on what we can deduce from the photos and our past experience with the individual seller. Hopefully we have made the right choice with this load of Long Leaf Heart Pine.
The heart pine beams prior to shipment down to New Orleans
Tools used to remove metal from the heart pine beams
Bartell Tapp using a metal detector on the new shipment of heart pine
