I have recently aquired a large amount of rough cut curly maple. It is 8 to 12 feet long and an average of 6/4 thick. I would like to replace my dining room floor using this lumber. Any suggestions? How thick? Tongue and groove? How long should the pieces be? How should I attach them to the subfloor? Thanks in advance.
Edited 7/30/2004 11:53 am ET by aguita
Replies
Size, unlike some things, doesn't matter.
Seriously, the thickness of the "wear strip", the portion of wood above the tounge is the issue. Once that is sanded through, the floor is done. So keep the tounge and groove nice and low.
Most commercial flooring is sold with random lengths, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
The ends should be t&g as well, so you will have to set up a cross cut jig on your shaper or router table. I think I would probably send out the milling if this were my project.
Flooring is applied over the subfloor usually over building felt and blind nailed through the tounge at an angle. There are commercial nailers that you can rent at a rental yard for this purpose.
There will be a wide variety of lippage on the material after installation, which will have to be sanded down. You can rent a machine to do this also at the rental yard. They can be difficult to master, so take it easy. I think I would sub out the sanding part if this were my job.
Finally is the finish. My personal favorite is Traffic, which is a two part water based poly. It cures really fast, about 2 hours. And using thin coats, you can apply 3 coats in a single day. Nice stuff. Sand between coats with a 120 screen. The screen machine, you guessed it, can be rented at a rental yard. You can probably handle this yourself, and I wouldn't sub out this job. The last coat is left as is and is not screened.
Good Luck.
Boris
"Sir, I may be drunk, but you're crazy, and I'll be sober tomorrow" -- WC Fields, "Its a Gift" 1934
I have been making and installing t&g flooring in my home. End-matching is not necessary. End-matching was probably done for situations where flooring was laid directly over joists with no sub-floor. If you examine most commercial flooring, the end-matched tongue and groove are so sloppily machined as to render the operation almost useless. I just cross-cut each piece carefully on the chop saw as I am installing. My joints (end and side) are nearly invisible over most of the floor.
Remember that the wider the board, the more expansion and contraction each board will exprience as the seasons change. I have been making mine 2 1/4" on the face (tongue is extra 1/4" or so). On some future floors I will probably go to 3" face width if my rough stock allows it.
As for length, longer is better. My average length is about 5'. I will have very few pieces below 3' and some will be 9' long! The greater length will install faster with fewer joints. It will give a stiffer floor and will look better.
I blind-nail using a standard pneumatic floor nailer (Senco).
I will dig up a word doc I generated describing my process for making the flooring and send it in a day or so.
Making your own flooring is very do-able if you have the equipment.
mlbfreestyle,
I am extremely interested in making my own flooring as we want to embark on that route for most of the floors in our house. Talk a little bit more about end-matching. Do you mean that you just butt join the ends and they are not T&G, just the sides? Thanks.Regards,
Buzzsaw
Buzz:
You are correct. The end milling is present on all commercial flooring. There is no doubt that it gives the installation extra strength. If you choose to butt joint them, thats your business.
I am not a full time floor guy, just a remudler, so take this with a grain of salt. However, I think the previous poster was a bit optomistic about using the equipment. I find the sander to be fairly difficult to use (it is heavy and has a mind of its own), and actually you need the smaller hand sander, too; and the successful use of that equipment takes some practice. I wouldn't want to practice on my personal living room floor. The equipment is also 220 volt.
Most floor guys have very long extension cords for the equipment and they jury rig it into the service box. Your rental equipment won't have that, so you will have to buy a 100 foot extension cord and the jury rig set up (a female 220 receptical and some 10 ga. wires that go into the box). Like I said, this is not a DIY deal, at least in my opinion.
But if you have the will, are willing to spend the money to rent and/or buy the necessary equipment, and the patience to practice, it can be done.
Taunton, by the way, has a fine, first rate book on installing hardwood floors, if I may give them a plug.
Regards,
Boris
"Sir, I may be drunk, but you're crazy, and I'll be sober tomorrow" -- WC Fields, "Its a Gift" 1934
I still disagree on the end-matching. Take a look at how sloppy much of this end-matching is. I cannot see it serving any purpose when installing over a solid sub-floor.
As for sanding, I use my trusty Bosch 4x24 hand-held belt sander. I follow up with an ROS for board ends and then run a hand-block over the entire floor with some 120 grit. I know this makes me sound like some kind of nut, but I have yet to see a sander available to the consumer that I would trust on my floors.
Hey Buzzsaw and Aquita; here is a Word document I cooked up explaining my process. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any specific questions about how I do this. I am somewhat proud of how things have been turning out and would be happy to help you achieve the same success.
This thing about end joining -
The main reason is not for strength. It is to limit movement of wood/wood that can cause squeaks. On anything larger in width than a 2-5/8" we will make ajoint, with a spline, a T&G bit, a biscuit, or whatever is appropriate. The wider the board, the more necessary the joint.
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Re: doing your own floor sanding.
First, I think if you have reasonable skill as a woodworker, you can do a decent job on sanding a floor. This is especially true in your case, where you are doing a light sanding to even out the new floor.
Second, most rental units are designed for 110v (instead of 220v), and running them off a 20 amp circuit is for sure not a problem. I just helped a friend refinish his entire first floor, and we used a 20 amp circuit (from the kitchen or bath) where possible, but had no problem with a 15 amp circuit where that's all we had.
Third, there are two types of floor sanders commonly available in the rental market: The first is a drum in which you wrap strips of paper around the drum. The second is a real belt sander, which functions just like the ones we are accustomed to.
I would avoid drum sanders like the plague!! It takes an exceedingly fine touch to avoid putting divots in the floor surface on the beginning and end of each pass.
The belt sanders are way more forgiving, and it takes minimal practice to ease the sander down and up on each pass. They will cost more to rent, and may be somewhat harder to find, but this is the best way to go.
There is a third type of sander which uses 3 or 4 six-inch random orbital discs. This is great for the homeowner since it is much harder to screw things up. Remember, a floor is a major project and a big divot can really detract from the value of a property. These disc sanders are slower, but they do get the job done.
http://www.u-sand.com/
Something not mentioned is how the thickness of the 6/4 flooring will match up to the height of the other floors. A half inch is a lot when going from room to room.
You are absolutely right about this type of RO sander, and come to think of it, I think this would be the best alternative for a quick sand on a new floor.
They are fairly recent in this market (MN), and I haven't had occasion to try one myself. However, I have a rather klutzy friend who did (on a new floor that had to be evened out), and the floor came out great.
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