Hello,
I am thinking of making flooring for my guest room out of end grain walnut and purple heart. I am hoping to get some ideas of the issues I face and if I’m just out of my mind to try????
I want to make a checkerboard style about 12″ square and set it into alternating grooved mitered frames . The effect is a say a 14″ square with mitered frame. It will be grooved to accept the checkerboard purple heart and walnut “end grain” that is about 12″ square.
Can this work???? I have made box lids of this checkerboard style and it looks amazing and appears to be tough as iron!! The varnish is soaked up of coarse and many coats are needed.
Help
Rich
Replies
I use to install,sand & finish hardwood floors. A fellow that was opening a hardware store here installed an end grain floor consisting of crosscut 2"by4'' rough cut oak. I cant remember if the oak was white or red. Anyhow I sanded the floor for him. The only thing that comes to mind is stock preperation and the levelness of the sub-floor you will be using for the installation. End grain as I quess you found from you boxes has quite the memory for the aggragate that is used to polish it. I suggest you relate to your floor has a box lid and use that experience to guide your work. Also true up your drum sander and edger so they are balanced. One of the things I use to do with my work is mist the wood with water to raise the grain and polish out with a palm sander before final tack and finishing.GoodWorkings-bufun
It is cerainly doable. One example I can cite is the stable floor at Ft. Myer, VA used by he Army's 3rd Inf. Regt. Caisson Plt. That floor is end grain oak 4X6 and it is both beautiful and tough. That floor has horses, caissons with steel rimmed wheels and GIs running back and forth all day long, and it looks great. I'd be interested to see what your floor looks like once you get it in.
-Tom
Really a "Breaktime" question. I'm betting the frame will be a problem. There's some similar floors in a museum near by and they tuck it under the trim moulding against the wall and allow plenty for expansion. Once they had a small leak and a two foot section of the floor buckled up and had to be replaced.
Rick,
I plan on leaving a lot of room for movement. Do you have any ideas on how best to prevent this buckling???? perhaps smaller squares would help or maybe larger??? I plan on having a groove for the checkered square on the frame and a tongue on the outside for the next. I would alternate the frames with purple heart and walnut.
Below are 2 pictures of a sample of the chekerboard. These "squares" are not square lol It is going to be a lid for a short box and the more rectangle shapes fits it better, but did cause me alingment issues. The scratches on the one picture are surface ( I think its actually my thumb nail!), and will not happen once finished.
Rich
You need to look up how much the wood will move to allow clearance. You can only do your best to keep any water from getting on the floor. Pour a glass of water on a sample pice and see. The floor that buckled was only wet in a small spot and the rest was dry so it held the small spot captive as it expanded. A full size floor in a room that is flooded will rise over a foot in waves. I've seen that in some abandoned buildings.
I think a test is a good idea. This room should not have problems with water, but one never knows. I want to put in sky lights...so they may leak... I will let you know the results when I try it. Just need to build it now :)
Rich
You can find plenty of end grain flooring in industrial facilities and heavy manufacturing operations. The blocks are 6x6 treated yellow pine that are typically laid dry to a concrete floor - the blocks are about 6 inches high.
I've seen roof leaks where the floor stayed together and buckled to form a "hill" several feet high! Once the blocks dry out the hill disappeared - if not, a floor crew put down new, dry blocks.
It's certainly doable in a home - but I wouldn't do it in a kitchen or bath where mositure could cause problems.
My Jr. High Metal Shop class had end this kind of floor. The sink overflowed and there was a hill as you said the very next day.John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
The more things change ...
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Petronious Arbiter, 210 BC
This company does end grain flooring all over the U.S.I hope this helps.Ronhttp://www.kaswell.com/woodblock/oakplank.htm
Kaswell also makes a recycled plastic block that looks like it would be very interesting as a shop floor.
John W.
Rich,
When I built my workbench tops, I made a 12" by 72" tool tray to go between them. For the wear and tear on the tray bottom, I used some crossections of the workbench cut about 1/2" thick. I glued them edge to edge, but added a strip of 2" by 12" wide Oak to get my length and used an 18" Delta drum sander to sand the top and bottoms flat. To add strength and stability, I glued the endgrain panel to 3/4" thick plywood using Titebond. After apply glue to the face of the plywood and endgrain panels, I covered the top endgrain side with a sheet of plastic to prevent sticking, added another piece of plywood to spred the clamping pressure, and used deadweights to "clamp" it over night.
During the next few days, as the Titebond dried, I could see where the endgrain sections had really taken in the moist glue and expanded. It began to shrink and hairline gaps appeared, not at all the glue joints, but in the wooden pieces themselves. I used thin pieces of matching endgrain wood glued into the gaps to make it all look great; it was a lot of work and more endgrain sanding though. You might have better luck using a non-waterbased adhesive or contact cement.
Bill
I don't have any personal experience with purpleheart, but lots of people who post here say it will eventually turn brown, no matter what kind of finish you put on it.
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