What Is Handscraped Wood?

Aged

• One reason to hand scrape wood, particularly wood used for flooring, involves creating an aged look. Aged wood refers to using various techniques that give wood a rustic, primitive appearance. The demand for aged wood is an outgrowth of using reclaimed wood from older buildings to give a feeling of individuality and history to modern structures. Many of today's homeowners prefer a hardwood floor with this type of traditional character rather than the smoother look of modern wood flooring.

Hand and Machine

• Flooring manufacturers use two different methods to create scraped wood: manually and by machine. The manual method involves letting skilled craftsman use hand tools to work the boards, giving each individual piece of flooring an individualized appearance. In the other method machines, rather than workers, scrape the boards, resulting in less cost to the purchaser. However, this process gives each board the same type of surface characteristics, which some homeowners consider undesirable.

Skill Level

• Although hand scraping can give wood planks a more rustic look, the actual quality depends on the skill of the individual scraper. Among certain members of the Amish community, the craft of hand scraping has been handed down from generation to generation, resulting in very skilled workers who remain in high demand. Unfortunately, some manufacturers use less skilled individuals who produce inferior work. Homeowners need to investigate the experience of a company's hand scrapers before purchasing any flooring.

Tips

• True hand-scraped wood varies from board to board. Flooring delivered to your home will not look exactly like any sample you saw at the showroom. You have a wide variety of woods to select from when choosing your hand-scraped flooring, including hickory, oak and cherry. Picking a darker wood and giving it a dark stain shows off the character of hand-scraped wood to its best advantage.