The art of restoring an ancient wooden board, recovered from an old structure, to its original splendor passes through multiple stages of intervention.
The starting point is a board that shows the typical signs of time: dirty, dusty, discolored, damaged by atmospheric factors, defaced by holes and woodworms.
A long and careful craftsmanship brings the ancient wood to recover its unrepeatable characteristics, to enhance its veins and shades of color, which give it all the charm and warmth of aged wood.
The first phase of intervention on the reclaimed wood is the nailing, which is essential as the wood obtained from the demolition of a building almost always contains nails and other fixings.
Nailing is performed by hand by specialized personnel, to avoid damaging the material obstacles).
The un-nailing of old wooden boards and beams and, above all, to prepare it for trouble-free processing (the saw blades must not encounter metal is preceded by a high-pressure washing, which serves both to remove the dirt and to find the nails.
For the identification of the nails, most of the time it is necessary to use a metal detector.
Once identified, the nails are marked with a chalk; then, to clear the way and carry out the removal, the nail is circled with a series of small holes (usually the nail is just below the surface of the wood). There is often a halo of rust, so it is necessary to “make a space” around the nail to be able to remove it.
A further difficulty concerns the elimination of the square nails, as their tip, when inserted, turns into a “hook”. Eliminating them, naturally done by hand, represents one of the biggest problems, not only because the elimination is complicated, but also because of the “hole” that remains in the wood and which must then be grouted.
