1. Repurposing Barn Wood
Finding quality antique wood is the most important step in our process. Our team travels all across the United States to find antique barn wood to bring back to our mill in New Jersey.
2. Denailing
Once the wood is back at our mill, our team of dedicated specialists comb through thousands of feet of wood and remove every nail and metal contaminant by hand to ensure your wood product gets the proper Real Antique Wood treatment. Because there is no machine to do this process, it is all done by hand – the wood is meticulously inspected and manually metal detected – and is the most labor intensive part of the RAW process.
3. Stack & Sticker
Once the nails and metals are removed, we re-stack and inventory our wood so we can track our inventory. The initial stacking process is actually part of our transport method, and when the materials arrive, that is how it's organized and stored on-site. We also sticker the wood – separating each plank of wood with smaller blocks of wood to alleviate moisture and create space for the materials to breathe – and then prep it for the kiln.
4. Kiln Drying
Our wood is kiln dried to kill off any insects, larvae, mold, and fungus that may be living inside as well as reduce the moisture content of the wood to a workable level. Kiln drying the wood is key to ensuring longevity.
5. Milling
We have numerous machines in-house to create many possible end-uses for our reclaimed products including but not limited to flooring, beams, wall and ceiling material as well as rough stock.