Wide board flooring

[Backwoods]

I installed an Oak floor using wide planks. It had its challenges compared to narrow flooring. The planks had been barn dried, planed down to a full 1”thick, and then jointed. The floor consists of equal amounts of 6”, 8”, 10”, 12” and 14” wide mostly quarter sawn planks in random lengths. Each board is fastened down with four #14 1 ½” machine screws that are counter sunk in 7/8” holes with horizontal slots for expansion and contraction.

 

[dallasm1]

Great floor. Are those planks tongue and groove? What kind of finish would you put on this type of floor? Will you leave the screws exposed?

 

[Backwoods]

Great floor. Are those planks tongue and groove? What kind of finish would you put on this type of floor? Will you leave the screws exposed?

No tongue and grove, just planks. Each of the holes will have a wooden plug fitted, glued and sanded. As for finish, after several grits of sanding, it will get plenty of linseed oil with a bit of turpentine to thin it out for better absorption, then lots of paste butcher block wax will be hand rubbed in, and buffed out to a nice shine.

 

[Mike Van]

Just my 2 cents - We did the wax thing years ago on oak. Bad choice. When first done, you'd think you were on ice someone had poured oil on. It's that slick. Like a bowling alley, kind of. Second, with two kids & one [old] dog, in 6 months, the floor looked like crap. The wax can't take abuse. Second time around [and last I hope] We did 3 coats of oil base satin polyurathane. That was 10 years ago, the dog since passed on, the kids are 19, but the floor looks pretty darn good. Don't use waterbase poly, it may dry fast & not smell, but the end job is a long way from oil.

 

[RVALUE]

Nice job, info.

This does not apply, but is interesting or funny. A customer of mine did a 4x6 double T&G clear heart redwood deck many many years ago. He screwed it down sufficiently, and had me make (10 K or 20 K ???) plugs. He glued and sanded them in with aliphatic rezin (outdoors). The deck looked great, and cost (250K?). Then came the first rain, and the redwood swelled, and 'popped' out (all?) the plugs...

Design flaw....deluxe.

FYI Aliphatic resin glue is impervious to diesel, but succombs to water easily.

Merry Christmas

 

[demographic]

A house I was working on this year (built in 1660) had all oak beams and wide oak boards (some of them over a foot wide) that were held down with oak pegs.

The oak beams had let the floor go a fair bit out of level but the oak pegs had held the boards onto them very well, I was surprised.

 

[RVALUE]

A house I was working on this year (built in 1660) had all oak beams and wide oak boards (some of them over a foot wide) that were held down with oak pegs.

The oak beams had let the floor go a fair bit out of level but the oak pegs had held the boards onto them very well, I was surprised.

what does a peg look like, and how do they hold so well? put in dry or green or?

 

[mtngun]

Just my 2 cents - We did the wax thing years ago on oak. Bad choice. When first done, you'd think you were on ice someone had poured oil on. It's that slick. Like a bowling alley, kind of. Second, with two kids & one [old] dog, in 6 months, the floor looked like crap. The wax can't take abuse. Second time around [and last I hope] We did 3 coats of oil base satin polyurathane. That was 10 years ago, the dog since passed on, the kids are 19, but the floor looks pretty darn good. Don't use waterbase poly, it may dry fast & not smell, but the end job is a long way from oil.

I like the poly finish, too. Very low maintenance. Just dust mop it, maybe once in a while use a damp mop. After many years it may need to be lightly sanded and given a fresh coat of poly, not hard to do.

Last time I refinished an oak floor, I did one room with water base and the rest of the house with oil base. Both finishes turned out beautiful, though the color of the water based room didn't match the color of the the oil based floor in the rest of the house.

Thanks for the pics, Backwoods. You do good work.

 

[demographic]

what does a peg look like, and how do they hold so well? put in dry or green or?

They looked like these (although the pegs in the picture were from the oak roof but the ones from the floor looked the same but with chamfered tops and were slightly smaller) and I don't know how exactly there were put in.
I assume that the boards and beams were green when the holes were cut into them and then the pegs put in dry but I'm not exactly sure.

If anyone does know for sure I'd love to hear it.

One things for sure, they weren't done like THESE

Because they didn't have a wedge in the end.
I do like the look of the method shown in that Viking boat page though, and if it works for viking boats it must be pretty good.

 

[RVALUE]

Man, those are honking pegs. I'd hate to hold the floor with anything like that.

But, 1660 , their sencos were slow...

 

[Brmorgan]

Thanks for showing this! I've been working towards doing the same thing in my house with Douglas Fir, though it would be all 6" wide. I hadn't really thought about mortising the screw holes out to allow for movement though. Not that I think it's unnecessary; it just hadn't crossed my mind. I know to allow at least half an inch around the walls though. It's a fairly dry and even climate here so I'm not as concerned as some might be. Humidity in my house averages about 25%!

 

[mtngun]

I've been working towards doing the same thing in my house with Douglas Fir, though it would be all 6" wide. I hadn't really thought about mortising the screw holes out to allow for movement though.

I'm leaning toward doug fir floors in my bedrooms. What do you think of gluing the floor down ?

 

[Brmorgan]

Well I'm no flooring expert; I'm sure whatever I end up doing would be drastically wrong if you were to talk to a flooring person but work nonetheless. I'm not entirely trusting of glue on its own - I would think you'd want to tongue & groove and then nail/staple it down as well since that seems to be standard procedure. The reason I'm leaning towards screws & plugs is because the area I'm planning on re-flooring is old and is less than flat. The thinking is that where the tension caused by an uneven surface could cause a glue joint to pop apart or a nail to gradually pull out, a screw should stay put and hold it tight. I hope.

 

[swift4me]

linseed oil

Beautiful floor. I'm curious if you had used the linseed oil before. I've done alot of gunstock work, and learned the hard way long ago that most boiled linseed oil you can buy today has so many impurities it never loses that tacky feel. I've tried Japan drier, thinning, etc. High quality pure Linseed Oil is very hard to find. The linseed oil gun finishes that most people use with success have polyurethane as an ingredient.

Good luck, it looks great.

Pete

 

[redprospector]

I'm leaning toward doug fir floors in my bedrooms. What do you think of gluing the floor down ?

Bad idea. Glueing floor boards down dosen't allow for any movement, and individual floor boards will always move.
The floors that they glue down are generaly engineered flooring, & have a plywood, or particle board substrate.
Boards are going to move, you can't stop them. Understand the movement, and learn to work with it.

Andy

 

[BobL]

Beautiful floor. I'm curious if you had used the linseed oil before. I've done alot of gunstock work, and learned the hard way long ago that most boiled linseed oil you can buy today has so many impurities it never loses that tacky feel. I've tried Japan drier, thinning, etc. High quality pure Linseed Oil is very hard to find. The linseed oil gun finishes that most people use with success have polyurethane as an ingredient.

I use Pale Boiled Linseed Oil on my home made tool handles and it dries out fine, I paint it on with a paintbrush and let it soak in and wipe off the excess with a soft cloth. It takes about 2 days to dry.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I'm leaning toward doug fir floors in my bedrooms. What do you think of gluing the floor down ?

I've read about a few guys on line that did exactly that, and it did work for them. But here's the problem. We pretty much all live in completely different conditions, our houses are sealed up (or lack of) differently, and we live different life styles, we heat differently... ect. All of those things affect wood floors, so what one guy can get away with in HIS situation, doesn't mean it will work for YOU.

My vote goes to getting info on how to do it, and what works from the installers in YOUR area, and go from there. I wouldn't have believed that a glue down would work, but i know it has worked for more than a few folks.

Rob

 

[Ted J]

No tongue and grove, just planks. Each of the holes will have a wooden plug fitted, glued and sanded. As for finish, after several grits of sanding, it will get plenty of linseed oil with a bit of turpentine to thin it out for better absorption, then lots of paste butcher block wax will be hand rubbed in, and buffed out to a nice shine.

Have you thought about using pure tung oil instead of linseed oil. IMO Pure tung oil is probably better at water proofing, and doesn't dry hard leaving you with a slick or glossy floor.

 

[Brmorgan]

I love the look of Tung oil but it's not nearly hard or durable enough for a higher-traffic area or if you have dogs etc. running around on it. It'll show scratches very easily. I'm going to be going with a good hard Poly-based finish on whatever I end up doing.

Vid of applying tung oil to an oak floor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD53LK0trS8

 

[mtngun]

Bad idea. Glueing floor boards down dosen't allow for any movement, and individual floor boards will always move.
The floors that they glue down are generaly engineered flooring, & have a plywood, or particle board substrate.
Boards are going to move, you can't stop them. Understand the movement, and learn to work with it.

Boards will definitely expand/contract, but I fail to see how glue will constrain a board any more or less than nails ?

But -- I haven't tried the glue down method, just heard about another guying doing it on the West Coast, and was wondering if anyone else had experience gluing down doug fir.

Let's see if I can find his site and hopefully I don't get in trouble for posting the link since he is not a sponser. gluing doug fir flooring

Here's what he said on another forum (that AS does not allow us to link to), talking about doug fir flooring:

For wide floor parts 5" or bigger I like to glue the floor down. It makes it a lot stronger and keeps the floor tight with no squeaks. You can also get away with a lot less nails or smaller nails even using a finish nail, since the glue will do the work the nails just hold it until the glue sets.

Note he does T&G in addition to the glue.

I have nothing at all against nailed tongue and groove but I don't have the machinery to do tongue and groove, at least not do it well. I could perhaps set up a small router table to do the T&G but it wouldn't be super precise tolerances. I see my DIY choices as between screwing & plugging, as Backwoods did, or glue down.