Replies

1. 
   Jamie_Buxton | Jul 14, 2002 06:09pm | #1

   If you're trying for a floor that looks like the old ones, you might ask yourself how the old ones were laid.  I'll bet last century's floor mechanics didn't use the connector you're searching for.  They probably just nailed the flooring down.  Why not do your floor their way?

   Failing that, the thing you're describing sounds like any of several different gizmos sold for making outside decks.   They fasten the boards at the edges, rather than through the face, and still allow the boards to move as the humidity changes.

2. 
   observer | Jul 14, 2002 07:05pm | #2

   I think the buscuit idea would prove easier to carry out and would certainly work. If you installed the first board, inserted biscuits and shot a narrow crown staple at an angle through the biscuit, the floorboard and into the underlay it would lock the board down. The next board would lock down by sliding on to the biscuits and the process repeated on the outer edge.  Trying to butt the boards up tight with the connectors could get aggravating quickly, and would likely lead to splitting and splintering from the pounding the boards will take.

   You could use weight (sandbags, Masonry blocks, etc.) to hold the planks in place while the glue dries, but couldn't you screw them down as you lay them? If you are screwing them down, why do you want to glue them as well?

3. 
   floman47 | Jul 15, 2002 01:56am | #3

    I’m a hardwood-flooring contractor and a woodworker in southern California.

    

    By the time you re-saw it, plane and sand this floor is only going to be a ½” thick or less.   

    

    I would not use biscuits especially if you wont a gap between each board, you could see them in the down in the groove.  And I thank your to thin for them.  After you re-saw it I would plane it on both sides. When you re-saw you are opening up the middle of the board and it will take on moister and cup. But if you plane both sides it will be more equal.  Then let it set for a while before you install it so it can acclimate.  At lese two weeks or longer.  Maybe take one pass on the outside, and then let it set then finial mill it later. 

    

    Here are a couple of suggestions on what to do.  You could cut a 1/8” groove and buy slip tong (spline with rounded edges) from flooring supplier or make it, but you need it to be rounded all four sides.  After you put slip tong in the groove then blind-nail like regular flooring.  Ask supplier about renting a nail gun.  You don’t need anything on the ends.  And I would use a good hardwood mastic like Bostics Best.  Or you could leave it square edge and top-nail with “cut nails” that’s one way the old floors were dune.  But I will say there is nothing like T&G, check into having it milled it might not be that expensive.  As for the H shaped connectors I have never heard of them and I don’t thank they would work for flooring.

    

   How are you going to re-saw it?

   Where do you live? Southern states, more moisture, northern less.  Inland or by ocean? 

    Are you going to sand it?

   Are you trying to double the amount or just make it thinner? Maybe leave it 11/8” or just plane it to ¾”

    

   Jeff in so cal    

1. 
   DaBonds | Jul 15, 2002 03:36am | #4

   I really can't plane them on both sides because the boards were very nail/brad/tack infested and a good part of the floor had been painted. Dirt and paint will eat planer and sawblades faster than running them through sand. I removed as many nails as possible and am belt sanding them on both sides with 40 grit sandpaper before ripping them both to clean and flatten them. Still I'm hitting nails and tearing up the 8" thin kerf blades that I put in my 10" table saw.

   I will plane them on the showing side. The finished boards will be about 3/8" thick. I'm planning on using trim head screws on the edges so that nothing shows. I'm ripping it with very thin kerf 8 1/4" blades on a Shopsmith. It will take two cuts for each board but the blades are much cheaper than 10" blades and the kerf is much thinner which is important with the underpowered Shopsmith. I'm splitting them down the middle to get twice the board footage so that I can cut out knots and holes. I live 6 blocks off the Mississippi river in New Orleans. It should be a testing ground for building materials. The average summer day is 90 something degrees and 90%+ humidity. This wood is incredibly hard. It is possible to count more than 100 rings in some of the boards. They will not shrink or swell much at all. I like the idea of using biscuits and then screwing through them. This floor will only be good for one sanding but that should mean a 50 year life.

1. 
   floman47 | Jul 15, 2002 05:38am | #5

   Just trying to help, let us know how it goes.

    

   Jeff