Anyone ever make their own wood flooring?

[scott kinninger]

I've been thinking for a while now about the feasibility of making my own wood flooring from rough lumber. I would just start off with a small room, like my master bath which is maybe 40 square feet, in order to get the hang of it. What are the guidelines for how wide the tongue & groove are? are the tongue & groove exactly centered in the board or are they offset a little to allow for more wood for future sanding and refinishing? what about those cuts in the bottom of the board?..

I've got a good source for air dried lumber at $0.80/BF for oak, cherry and others but I dont have a router table or spray equipment (maybe I have a good excuse to get those huh?). I would think for small jobs the T&G's could be cut on a table saw and I could brush on Waterlox Original for a finish.

What do you think? Thanks.

[Doug Jones from Oregon]

Scott....I have done what you are thinking of doing, back in the 80's on our first house.

I got a deal on a load of maple, ripped to size on my table saw and then used a tongue and groove set on my router and router table. Did not bother with the bottom recesses....lived in the house for 10 years with no problems....

If I were to tackle again, I would insist on power feed on the table saw, (it was not easy to consistently run 10' boards by hand) and use either a molder or a shaper, again with a power feed.

I finished with whatever the popular spread on floor finish at the time...no need to spray. Sanded with floor sander after installation...

[Art Walker]

Yes, T&G are offset low for multiple refinishings. Reliefs on underside help it lie flat. Often the face below the groove is just a little shallow to keep the seal at the surface tight in the face of wood movement/mismatch.
Most of these points militate against DIY. Router bits will wear fast. You might consider a molding head with carbide inserts on the table saw instead of a shaper, but mechanical feed is a good idea for either machine for the edge runs.

Art

[Art Mann]

I have read several reports of people making their own flooring on this board and Woodnet. They are usually accompanied by photographs that look beautiful. I have noticed, though, that most of them remark that they doubt if they would not do it again. There is simply too much time and work involved.

As a minimum equipment set, you will need a planer and jointer to get flat and consistent thickness planks. I would not try to cut the tongue and groove with just a dado blade, as it will be slow and prone to error. I have seen moulding heads for a tablesaw that will cut the profiles and these should work much better. You can get tongue and groove router bits. However, I think even a beefy router in a substantial table would be pretty slow and tedious if you are milling many square feet. If it were me, I would at least budget for a spindle shaper with a power feeder.

I think you are wise to start on a limited project to see how it goes.

Different Art

[George Robin]

The wood should also be kiln fdried to at least 6-8%, not air dried!

good luck

[John Keeton]

Unless you are set up to T&G the ends of your boards, you will no doubt have a serious problem with upturn on some of the boards no matter how dry they are when you install them. The moisture content will change over time, and if they take on moisture from below (the unfinished side) more so than the top, they will curl on the ends. Even a slight curl on a 4' board makes a good place to trip over! The other issue is time. The most valuable asset that I have is whatever time the good Lord will let me have. I want to either enjoy it to the max, or get paid well for it. I have T&G a small portion of wood before on minimal equipment. It was neither enjoyable, creative or productive - just plain ol' work! I would guess that by the time you figure your time loss, paying to have the wood T&G by a mill would be money well spent.

[scott kinninger]

Thanks,
I was wondering if using kiln dried wood would be a requirement, I thought it would be but didnt know.

Scott

[Brad Shipton]

I am in the midst of doing this. It is a lot of work. Here are some things to ponder assuming you want T&G flooring and will use a shaper:

1. If you know of a moulding company in the area, talk to them first. They can run thousands of feet quickly and with 7head machines its done in one pass. I discovered a few after the fact that could have produced mine for very little.
2. If you go your own. Power feeder is a must. Thicknessing the stock is the biggest task. I even used the powerfeeder for the first couple of jointing passes. The Tongue/grooving are single passes.
3. Carefully consider the type of wood, paying particular attention to the ease of machining. I chose Jatoba and have had some tearout problems. The better the stock the longer pieces you can make. If my shop would permit, I would have finished pieces 12' long. This is nice for machining (less pieces to handle) and speeds installation.
4. Yes, to the Kiln dried unless you have time to air dry or dont mind re-doing this all after it dries/shrinks.
5. Microbevel or no-microbevel. Pre-finished flooring needs a microbevel to account for minor stock differences between adjacent pieces. When you build your own, you will most likely end up sanding in place so you can avoid the dust trap the microbevel creates.
6. Shaper cutters. Most north american flooring have a nail notch in the cutter. This gives a small spot for the nail or staple to go so you dont have any problems with adjacent pieces. LRH/Amana and many others sell good flooring sets.
7. Relief cuts on the back. I opted to make mine the same as the pro's, some do not go with relief cuts when they make their own.
8. End Matching: I am not doing this and have read many suggest it is not necessary.
9. You will need a good DC system to deal with the quantity of chips. To mill 300bdft of stock from 4/4 to 3/4" lead to 5 45gal pales of chips.

enjoy.

[Rod Sheridan]

I made flooring out of red oak as follows

- joint one face/edge
-plane other face
-rip on tablesaw using feeder
-tongue on edge using feeder on shaper
- groove/plane other edge on shaper using feeder and material between auxilary fence and cutter (produces identical width stock)
- relieve back on shaper
-install and sand, then finish.

It was a lot of work, however the rough material was only $1 per board foot from the local sawmill.

It was a lot faster when I worked in the industry and there was a pair of 50 HP gang rips feeding four eight head stickers!

Regards, Rod.

[Brad Shipton]

Another thing worth mentioning is if your stock is fairly straight I would consider having it straight line ripped (SLR) at the mill.

Brad

[brad kellner]

i made a bunch of tg red oak hardwood flooring about 5 months ago for a friends house and i had 300bf of cherry that i made into flooring for my house im building next year (i plan on buying another 600 bf when the tax return comes). i planed everything down to 13/16 (ill explain why i made them a 1/16 thicker than normal 3/4 harwood floors) then jointed one edge and then ripped them into 4 1/4 inch pieces (the tg bits i used left a 1/4 in toung so i planned on 4 in boards so i added a 1/4 in for it) of various lengths (u do not want seems to over lap and u do not want it to look as though your are making them as a pattern). one tip i can give you is set up 2 router stations and have them dialed in before going to town. if not u will spend alot more time than really nessesary. and if possible have a friend help u by setting up a assembly line. say u cut the tounge on one side and one edge and he cuts the grouve on the other side and the other end. one of the benifits of this is if u have a friend and you each are only doing one process then there is less of a likely hood of making careless mistakes (ie. putting the tounge or groove on the wrong end, it is a stupid mistake but when u make 3 or 400 of the same thing believe me it happens) and make 20 percent more than u expect to need. saw it is a 10' x 10' room thats 100 sq ft. make 120-130 sq ft. this will acount for any mistakes u might make. and when u install the flooring if it is on a slab concrete floor you will your hardwood flooring mastic (glue) it will come in a 5 gallon bucket (be careful not to get it on you or it will just get all over everything) and you will spread it with a trowel (the bucket will tell you what trowel to use). if you are installing it on a reagualr plywood floor you can put down builders paper or a thin foam pad like what they use for laminate hardwood floors. a buddy of mine is a flooring installer and he told me on his house he stripped the old flooring down to the bare floorboards and layed the flooring into the mastic and applied glue into the grove and used his flooring stapler. he said he never had any creeks or anything and he installed it 10 yrs ago. make sure that you leave about a 1/4-3/8 gap around the edge. and now the reason i made my hardwood floor 1/16 thicker is becuase chances are u will have to sand the floor when you are done to make it all leveled out and this is also preping it for stain. stain it what ever color works for you (i left mine natural) and then use a good polyurethane that can take the abuse. i used the minwax heavy duty poly on mine, it is an amber color and will darken the stain. dont apply it with a paint brush or u will be there for days and you will be able to tell were u started and stopped. also dont use a foam roller either or u will have a bunch of bubbles. they have these rags that almost feel like thin soft swade material. the name of it excapes me right now. but it did a wonderful job. you can do one coat a day, the next day (24 hrs later) you can walk on it (with booties on your shooes) but give it 2 more days to really harden after you apply your last coat. the floor should look beautiful for years, but since you made the floor a little thicker you can resand the floor and restain it probly 4 times if u deside to change it.

if you need any more assistance message me and ill help you as much as i can, and if you have a question i cant answer i will ask my buddy who does custom hardwood floors and i will find out for you.

best of luck and post some pics of the project i would love to see how it turns out for you