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Barn repairs

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2025 4:58 pm
by DavidBarkey
I think a barn repair would come under "farm" lol. Just one one many non GT jobs on the go this summer . Barn was built in the 1860's .
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Portions of some of the sleepers were rotton as well as the floor no long er safe in spots .

Re: Barn repairs

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2025 10:09 pm
by JSinMO
So many people would just tear it down and forget it. I’m glad you’re able to rehab the old barn and put back into use. Think about those guys back in the 1860s that built it. Just hand tools and a strong back, pretty impressive.

Re: Barn repairs

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2025 11:11 pm
by myerslawnandgarden
JSinMO wrote: Thu Aug 28, 2025 10:09 pm So many people would just tear it down and forget it. I’m glad you’re able to rehab the old barn and put back into use. Think about those guys back in the 1860s that built it. Just hand tools and a strong back, pretty impressive.
Yes!!

And when I see an old church built over 100 years ago, I often wonder how they erected them without the modern man lifts of today and only hand built scaffolding.

And then we could get into a discussion about the Egyption pyramids, but that's another story.

Fascinating,

Bob














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Re: Barn repairs

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2025 6:16 am
by DavidBarkey
You are so right guys . According to the owner , the barn was dismantled and move to this location back in the 40s when the original barn on this site burn down . It was on a site being developed for war time housing . It got a second life then . I would not normally get into something like this that was not my own , but it is my main farmer clients barn and he asked me if I could fix it up so he can use it again for equipment winter storage . Most of his stuff is 50s, 60s, 70s, pull behind small scale farm equipment . Single and 2 row stuff . Putting :51: to work as well , no way I could do this alone .

Re: Barn repairs

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2025 7:18 am
by Toolslinger
Any time I have to work on my barn, or the gristmill, I'm always amazed at the craftsmanship.

It's always a debate how much to replace... You have to deal with breaks, and serious rot, but then there's the beams that have deteriorated, but are still bigger than anything you can realistically get today, so they stay, and perhaps get trimmed down a bit, and shimmed... Always an interesting process.

Re: Barn repairs

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2025 5:45 am
by DavidBarkey
Toolslinger wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 7:18 am Any time I have to work on my barn, or the gristmill, I'm always amazed at the craftsmanship.

It's always a debate how much to replace... You have to deal with breaks, and serious rot, but then there's the beams that have deteriorated, but are still bigger than anything you can realistically get today, so they stay, and perhaps get trimmed down a bit, and shimmed... Always an interesting process.
One beam in a low weight area looked ok on the outside but when we went to drive nails through it found it was centre rotted out . It is like a tube now . We will just have to keep an eye on it .

Re: Barn repairs

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2025 5:17 pm
by Eugen
I both respect and prefer the choice of restoring old structures, if they can still be restored. I'll be watching your progress Dave, if you're sharing.

We got two small buildings next to the house, both very old. One was used as a summer kitchen, the other housed two cows. They're not in very good shape, but I want to restore and repurpose them. I'm finding out some pretty crazy stuff here, for instance, you cannot find 2x4, 2x6, 2x8, and so on, in a HW store. The way it works here is you go to some local guy that has a mill and they'll mill what you need. It's al rough cut, and not dry wood. As houses are only made from masonry, the only parts of the house that uses wood is the roof. But roofs use clay tiles, so they use thicker beams for rafters, like 5x8, or even chunkier. I keep on wanting to post what I'm doing, but so hard to find the time for the reporting, at night I just lose consciousness.. :109:

Re: Barn repairs

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2025 5:33 am
by DavidBarkey
@Eugen Good to hear from you . I will do what I can to share some more pics. Still more to do at the barn .