Last year, I bought an old NE Ohio house (built around 1830) that has balloon-framed full-dimensional studs and joists in oak... and I believe it is white oak. It is obviously old growth lumber as the growth rings are incredibly tight and the material is incredibly heavy. I pulled down a couple non-bearing walls and had to practically drag the 2x4s to get them to the garage. I am looking to salvage this material for use in making floors, tool boxes, cabinets, maybe even woodwork for the house itself if it mills up attractively. The thought of putting the material to visible use is one I like a lot.
My question relates to resawing. The floor and ceiling joists are all 2x8s. But the spans are 16 feet so the floors noticeably deflect with a live load. So, my first thought was to sister on 2x8s to stiffen up the floors. But the thought occurred to me that if I used larger framing members (2x10 or 2x12) I could salvage the oak 2x8s as well as all the studs I've pulled out of the house. Since they are balloon-framed, pulling them out would not be that difficult. The difference in the materials costs to upsize would be under $1000, and I would have enough material to probably case out all the woodwork in the entire house with the reclaimed material... like I said, IF it mills up attractively.
I've never used a bandsaw for this heavy an application. Mostly my bandsaw experience has been little more than hobby-level work. I am looking for advice on a machine that would be able to resaw this material in half so that I can get two boards of standard 1-by material out of it post-sanding. I'd like to do as much of this work as possible myself, though there are a couple mills down Amish-country-way where they will make S4S out of reclaimed stuff for a fee or part of the haul. So, any help is greatly appreciated in helping me understand what type of machine I need to handle this job, and whether it will be worth it in the long run to do it myself. THANKS!!