VENERABLE VINTAGE
Rideout Reclamation Gives New Life to Old Wood
By Susan Rich
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| Above, Shiloh stands in front of samples of fir and pine flooring, turnings made from Philippine mahogany that he will be using in his own home. Right, slabs of timber framing cut-offs collected from a recent build. |
Shiloh Rideout harvests old wood, such as turn-of-the-century barns along the Oregon Coast, old schoolhouses built in the Philippines during World War II, and tobacco warehouse and other weathered buildings located in Kentucky and Alabama.
When he finds a vintage structure slated for removal, Rideout’s goal is to make every wood chip his own.
Before these buildings can be toppled by excavation — a process that crushes, crumbles, and destroys more than it saves — he makes a competitive bid for “deconstruction.” This painstaking, manual process peels a building apart layer by layer, preserving outer walls, support beams, and roofing materials.
At his warehouse, people can choose a variety of wood products: Everything from jumbo-sized raw beams, complete with the patina of tobacco stains and splinters, to fine furniture built on-site by a master craftsman.
“Every stick we sell here is something you don’t have to buy new,” he claims proudly.
Vintage Wood
Rideout Reclamation Supply offers a wide and unusual selection of wood products. Reclaimed floors, paneling of any description, and barn siding in large, extra-large, and jumbo dimensions (some boards range in size from 4”x15” to 8”x12”) are all available.
From Rideout’s perspective, the more unusual, the better.
He is currently deconstructing a warehouse in Kentucky. The 110,000 sq ft structure is made of pine, and the wood is naturally stained with tobacco juice, no finish. A few million board feet of this time-stroked lumber is now available.
He also has a large supply of decorative mahogany windows — complete with oyster shell panes — dating from the Philippine’s Spanish Colonial period. Another product on tap: The wood used by the Japanese to build schoolhouses in the Philippines during World War II.
Closer to home, Rideout’s passion is old barns. “Not everybody has the moxie to take down old barns. They get two or three sticks into it – they’re dealing with 65-foot-long 8”x10” beams — and give up. They don’t know how to take it down while preserving it,” he says.
He recently dismantled an immense dairy barn located in Tillamook, OR. “It had been there since the turn of the century. We don’t use machines other than a forklift or bucket lift. It’s all hand labor. We take it top down, then remove the inside.”
He Sells What He Knows
Owning a timber reclamation business is a dream come true for Rideout, a general contractor who has been swinging a hammer since he was 12.
It took three years of planning “before I pulled the trigger.” With contacts in the Philippines and wood scouts peppered around the country, Rideout is confident his unusual product line will have a solid market here in town.
It’s no secret why he located his warehouse a block away from the ReBuilding Center — during his days as a general contractor, Rideout spent many hours loitering in the parking lot, waiting for the next truckload of goods.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’d buy a load before it even came off the truck,” he recalls. But he will tell you he spent close to $30,000 at the center before realizing that what his clients wanted — and what the center wasn’t supplying — was giant wood beams and antique oddities.
“And I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have a used-lumber yard with the stuff people hoped to find, and more?”
Reclaimed wood was an easy choice: “I wanted to work in the context of what I knew. Construction is what I know, so wood is what I sell.”
Rideout Reclamation is located at, 8424 N Cradford, Portland, OR 97203, for more information call 971-404-6253.
Susan Rich is a freelance writer and owner of RichWriting Creative Services. She can be reached at susan@richwriting.com. |
