Dry wood concerns

[Eric iversen]

Restoring OT Yankee with sponsons. All canvas is now removed. The cedar planks are overly dry and likely will not hold new tacks or staples. I’m thinking of using a wood hardner to pretreat the exterior before preceding. Might also use in all old screw holes

I’ve used the product in restoring logs in cabins with great success

Any and all thoughts are welcome. Thanks

 

[Howie]

Well... I know there's a lot of debate on how to treat the exterior of old cedar planking. Seems to be you want to get oils back into the wood in hopes that it regains some of its original flexibility. I don't see how a 'wood hardener' can do this. I slather on a roughly 50:50 mixture of boiled linseed oil & mineral spirits. And in many cases I've been amazed to see how much 'life' old dry planking can get when it absorbs this mixture.

 

[Eric iversen]

Thanks Howie. I’ll use that. May try a spot treatment of hardner to see impact where the wood is badly damaged from too many tacks. In a perfect world i would replace the entire plank. May do that yet.
I’ve used this hardner on pine logs with great success. Thanks again

 

[Tariacuri]

I don't have the experience of Howie and others - but I have been using this stuff - https://www.owatrolusa.com/product/...MI9OiWmd2Q6gIVCtvACh2wzgWsEAAYASAAEgIpO_D_BwE

 

[Floyd Reid]

I have used a boat soup blended from a recipe by Geoffrey Burke with very good results. It not only put moisture back in the wood but also evened out color variations. I don't feel it is appropriate to post another person's formula (Plus I would probably get it wrong.) but Geoff shares it freely if you contact him.