Recommended treatment/finish for beam in very poor condition

[inwood]

I have a beam which is currently painted in a water based black paint. Underneath the paint the beam is in a very poor condition. Although the core of the beam remains (and remains structurally sound) there is a 20mm depth all around this core that has suffered significantly from woodworm and possibly DWB attack.

The other beam in this room had to be replaced (with reclaimed beam) as the damage to that beam was beyond repair (the beam having lost about 60% of it's depth due to insect attack).

I need as far as possible to bring some consistency to both beams in the room.

I was thinking of the following approach:
1. Remove paint from painted beam with Klingstrip to determine exact condition of beam.

and then either:
2. Sandblast beam - not my preferred approach as I suspect it will leave the beam very pitted and cause too much damage.
2. Remove by hand the loose material (hand sanding) and leave natural wood exposed.
2. Sand with machine to sound material and leave exposed.

3. Treat both beams with either a limewash to scare off the wee pesties or a raw linseed oil.

Your comments or experiences of similar would be greatly appreciated.

 

[middi]

If old existing beams have been attacked by woodworm in their earlier life and someone has then decided to paint them, it can be quite disheartening experience to restore them to " clean" wood.

All the approaches you have mentioned can be applied, unfortunately apart from Klingstrip and hand picking, the other options can leave you staring at driftwood with not much historical significance.

The sandblasting approach can be used if extreme light sensitivity by the blasting operator using very fine sand and pressure is exercised. If the frass created by the worm holes is quite soft, a lot of uneven pitted surface will be exposed.

The removal of frass, or loose material with sander or similar is not advisable, it would make the beams look unnatural , "dishonest" and totally inappropriate the remove their signs of age.

If you can carefully remove the paint and expose as much of the original woodsurface as possible, you can use bees wax to seal and stabilise the frass exposed. If every now and then a bit of frass becomes loose and falls to the ground, so be it, just hoover it up and let the rest of the beams carry on ageing gracefully.

Alternatively if you do not like the existing " colour" scheme on the beams , just do nothing and limewash them.

 

[NT]

Since you cant get a reasonable wood finish, I'm not sure if theres any point stripping them.


NT

 

[Lime]

Stripping the beam down to it's strong heart probably will leave it looking gaunt or worse.
Perhaps just taking the old paint off and filling any unsightly holes would be best.

 

[andrew gayton]

the georgian (and beyond) tradition was to box in 'ugly' hewn beams with thin boarding with cock beading etc etc mouldings to the corners to offer something more complimentary to the current fashion dictats. you could do this and leave the beam for someone in the future to repair; who knows what technological advances may be applicable to such works in the future?? and, it would ensure that you get away from the olde worlde pub interior style..............