Creating hardwood floor planks?

[jeff begin]

How difficult is it to mill hardwood flooring? Is it as simple as planing it and putting a tounge-and-groove on it at the router table?

I'm considering laying about 1000 sf of oak throughout my house and did some really quick price calculations. It looks like I could save $800-1000 in materials if I bought the rough lumber and milled it myself. But I thought I'd ask since a lot of things seem easier than they end up being. :D

[Greg Cuetara]

Have you looked at lumber liquidators? I thought that they had oak flooring for a buck or two a square foot. You may want to really think about pre-finished HW flooring as most of the cost is in the finishing and if you have never sanded floors before it is a daunting task. I know some people charge $4-$5 / sq.ft. for sanding and finishing. Also, the prefinished flooring will hold up much better over time.

You need to think about the total costs...if you want to rent a sander and buy finish that is also a cost. If you are going to have someone do it then that is a cost. It all adds up....also with the prefinished flooring you don't have to deal with the sanding dust and finishing fumes.

Greg

[jeff begin]

Thanks for the reply. I've heard--and my experience with the hardwoods in our kitchen--is that prefinished floors do not hold-up as well nor look as nice because of the small gaps between the planks. When we bought our house, it came with an oak floor in the kitchen made with prefinished, Bruce hardwood flooring bought at the borg for around $4.30 sf. It was installed in 2003 and already has 1/16" gaps in some areas, especially near the sink and garage entrance door where water is more of an issue. I have to beleive that sanding and finishing the flooring after it has been installed will be much better sealed against water. (Please correct me if I am wrong)

It's going to cost me more to buy the Bruce stuff to match and extend into the dining and living room than it will be to just rip it up and lay down new material from lumber liquidators or milling my own. Looking at bit closer... yeah, I might only save a couple hundred dollars by rolling my own. But there's also pride in being able to point at my floors and say "Yeah, not only did I install and finish those floors, I also made it". But if it's a major hassle or I'd need a shaper rather than just my RT, then yeah, I'll just buy the premade flooring.

[hank dekeyser]

Jeff,
800-1000 sf takes some time to lay - and sand - and finish - and sand - and finish again - and sand - and finish again- what's your time worth? Plus sander rental and sandpaper,and stain, and topcoat, and applicators. Oh yeah and a few bits for the router, and probably a router as well.

Not much of anything is going to keep moisture from being an issue with a wood floor. Wood moves with the relative humidity etc, you know that. SOoooooo no matter what it is impossible to entirely seal the wood from the elements and have a "perfect floor" all year long. winter time it will dry out and cracks will open. Spring and summer it will swell and cracks will disappear - If you want a floor that looks "perfect" get vinyl.

I've got all the stuff to do floors, and ya know what ? We've got a 1200 sf kitchen to re-floor and I'm buying mine pre-finished. DONE 25 year warranty - it's gonna take long enough to lay the darn thing - (plus w/ 3 dogs how the hell am I gonna be able to put a decent top-coat on it ??) hair, etc.

Yeah, it's nice to say "I did it" but then again, a guys gotta know when to say when, and spend the little time we have doing something more important. Shop around, you can find flooring pre-fin for as little as 3-4 bucks a foot YMMV

[Rob Russell]

We have the standard 2 1/4" strip oak in a few parts of our house. It was installed, sanded and finished by a professional. Assuming that's what you're talking about, let's do some math.

1000 sq feet of 2 1/4" means 6000+ linear feet of boards to lay down. The unmilled blank has to be at least 2 1/2" because of the tongue. You'd need to use 8" wide boards to get (3) 2 1/2" boards. Let's say you use all 8' * 8" wide boards. You'd get (3) strips out of that for a total of 24 linear feet. Let's call it 25'. 6000 feet of boards / 25' per rough board = 240 boards. 240 boards * 8 feet * (8 inches/12 inches) = 1280 board feet. You will have waste, parts of the boards you can't use and some leftovers, so you probably have to start with 1400 to 1500 board feet of lumber or so. Remember, you don't want knots (other than tiny pinhole ones) in the flooring.



Do you have the equipment to:

Consistently face joint the rough stock?
Consistently thickness plane it?
Put a straight edge on it and consistently rip the boards to width?This part of the operation is critical. You could also use a thickness planer and run the boards through on edge to achieve the exact width.
Mill both the tongue and groove?
You say a router table. IMO, this is a job for a shaper with a power feeder. You've got a lot of stock to mill and a feeder would give a consistent edge (even pressure) when you're milling. Not to say that you can't do it with a router table.

Commercial flooring also has a groove or 2 cut along the bottom. I'm not sure why, but there has be be a good reason. Perhaps it allows for expansion and contraction of the flooring while keeping the top face tight.

I've got the machinery to do all of this stuff and it sounds like a lot of work to me.

If you don't want prefinished (and I understand why you don't want it) - I'd rethink just having a pro install, sand and finish the floors.

[Rod Sheridan]

I've made flooring and even with a shaper and power feeder it's a stack of work.

You have to joint and plane the rough stock, then rip it about 1/8" oversize.

When you run it through the shaper for the first edge profile you mill the profile and take 1/16" off the entire edge.

Other profile is set up with the piece running between the cutter and the fence (don't try this on a router table) with the power feeder. This time the entire edge is milled and the flooring is machined to a consistent width.

Now all you have to do is cut the back relief profiles (another cutter) using the power feeder.

So for shaper time alone, at 3 passes for 6,000 linear feet is 15 hours (Feeder set at 20FPM). If you assume 3 passes per for jointing, 2 for planing you have 15 hours of jointer time, 10 hours of planer time and 5 hours ripping on the saw.

Now you know why flooring is run on a gang rip and sticker, feed a board into the gang rip, strips come out, fed into maybe three sticker lines, flooring comes out of the sticker in one pass.

Don't under estimate the amount of scrap, and the mountain of waste that this will generate, you're converting at least 35% of your material to waste during the machining.

Have fun, however this isn't a router type job, expect to purchase a shaper, a power feeder and at least 3 shaper cutters.

Regards, Rod.

[Greg Cuetara]

Thanks for the reply. I've heard--and my experience with the hardwoods in our kitchen--is that prefinished floors do not hold-up as well nor look as nice because of the small gaps between the planks. When we bought our house, it came with an oak floor in the kitchen made with prefinished, Bruce hardwood flooring bought at the borg for around $4.30 sf. It was installed in 2003 and already has 1/16" gaps in some areas, especially near the sink and garage entrance door where water is more of an issue. I have to beleive that sanding and finishing the flooring after it has been installed will be much better sealed against water. (Please correct me if I am wrong)

It's going to cost me more to buy the Bruce stuff to match and extend into the dining and living room than it will be to just rip it up and lay down new material from lumber liquidators or milling my own. Looking at bit closer... yeah, I might only save a couple hundred dollars by rolling my own. But there's also pride in being able to point at my floors and say "Yeah, not only did I install and finish those floors, I also made it". But if it's a major hassle or I'd need a shaper rather than just my RT, then yeah, I'll just buy the premade flooring.

First of all I would not be buying hardwood flooring from the BORG. Find a good local flooring supplier or go to lumber liquidators. Second, gaps can be caused by many many different reasons...one being the installation...one being not letting the wood acclimate to your house before it is installed. If you bring flooring into your house and install it the next day there is a good chance, not 100% chance, but good that it will naturally dry / shrink and cause gaps. As someone else has said even hardwood flooring that is installed / sanded / and finished there will be gaps in the winter time and none in the summer time. This also depends on the climate where you live but also has to do with your heating system, a forced hot air system will be dryer, your A/C system and what you keep the humidity at year round.

I know this subject has been brought up before so maybe a search would be helpful.

I think Rod is correct that a shaper would be in order for that much wood. Have you thought about the cost of planer and jointer blades or sharpening along with router bits? With a shaper, cutters, and feeder you would lose any money you think you would save. Now if you need / want a shaper then you could make out on the deal. I do know that I can't buy oak for the price that LL sells the unfinished flooring for.

Another option would be to make all the cuts on the TS. It would be a lot more work but could be done.

Greg

[Thomas Bank]

I've heard--and my experience with the hardwoods in our kitchen--is that prefinished floors do not hold-up as well nor look as nice because of the small gaps between the planks.

If this is in reference to Lumber Liquidators, they offer unfinished solid wood flooring as well as the pre-finished and engineered versions. I have finished laying about 700~800 s.f. of their hickory utility grade flooring in my woodshop and I'm pleased with the results. Just waiting for warmer weather to finish it.

I will warn that their utility grade notes that it "...will have defects, knots, open knots, missing tongues, machine burns, splits in the wood and short pieces (12"-8")."

Although for me, I felt that the "defects" added character for a shop and really I didn't find that many pieces that were unusable and really there were not that many to begin with, I do feel that the comment about "short pieces" is a bit misleading as it implies that they will be in the minority - just as the other defects are on a minority of the pieces. I'd say that less than 10% of the pieces were over two feet long and maybe a couple dozen pieces were over three feet long.

Again, for a shop it sort of adds to the character. But it did make it somewhat difficult to keep things straight. But it works for what I used it for and I got it for less than $1 a square foot. Part of the issue was that it was a special deal that they ran on it and it was ordered and shipped to the local store (also, note that it took me about four months of waiting before they had the hickory available at all - so check back often if you are looking for a particular wood), so I wasn't able to look at the material before purchasing. For what I used it for, I would do it again. But I had been considering getting more of it to do a "rustic" floor and this would have not worked for the look that I wanted.

[Brad Shipton]

I am with Rod. I dont think 1000sqft is router work. I used a 4hp shaper with a PF and would not attempt so without. The tooling is not cheap. I have made about 600sq ft thus far. The last batch of 300sqft was 20hr labour from rough to ready to install and resulted in five 45gal barrels of chips (plane to thickness, relief cut, T & G and end matching). Keep in mind when you do you estimates that you will probably buy 4/4 stock and end up tossing 25% of it out the door as chips if you stick to 3/4". Install is easy, but the finish time adds up. Professional grade floor finishes are not cheap either. Anywhere from $50 to $160/gal.

Unless you are set on avoiding a micro-bevel or want wider/longer boards that you will get by using a higher grade stock, I am not sure I would do it again. When I did my cost comparisons I was looking at a Mirage product that was quite a bit more expensive than BORG type stuff.

Good luck.
Brad

[Chris Padilla]

Wow...that is quite a job! Sounds like lottsa bits to go through or keep sharp, lottsa waste and sawdust and mostly, lottsa TIME. What is your time worth?

I think you'll find picking up stuff at Lumber Liquidators is well worth the price. One has to realize that there are just some things one can't build. I would be divorced if I didn't let my wife pick up some furniture from Ethan Allen because I cannot have a full-time job and make all our furniture. Pick your projects but be reasonable with them. I now have a living room full of Ethan Allen stuff, a happy wife, and time to do a few custom projects...life's good! :D

[Prashun Patel]

I'm installing an hw floor in my sunroom currently. IMHO, it's not worth milling your own for that savings. The hardest part will be the sanding and finishing. Way worth the marginal cost.

I don't think you can say all prefinished is inferior quality to hand finished. There are very high quality prefinished materials out there. Bruce isn't the only game in town.

Speaking of Bruce, we have it in our house (8 yrs old) and it looks great. How great a floor looks over time is just as much a function of the care taken during installation and the maintenance as it is the quality of material.

Also, if you mill yr own floor, you'll have to use solid stock. Engineered floors have a plywood substrate which can reduce movement over time.

Last, if you really want to save a few $$, yr best trading 'down' in material than trying to finish yrself. Going from Cherry to maple to oak can save you between $3 and $5 /sft.

IMHO, the only reason to finish yr own floor is if it's fun for you, or if being custom is important to you - not for $$ savings...

Sorry for the long post.

[Neal Clayton]

from someone who has the lower end equipment necessary to do this and have done it for molding, which is similar to your floor idea...

making something of equivalent quality of the stuff you can buy already made is rather silly. the only reason to do this is to make something better than you can commonly buy.

in this particular example, you can make room length flooring with a molder or power fed shaper which would fit the 'better than you can commonly buy' bill, but you have to have a gang rip saw to cut the blanks, you can't cut a 16-20 foot un-squared board on a table saw.

nor can you hand feed floor boards through a router table to cut the tongue and groove. you need a power fed shaper or molder to do this.

if you're starting from rough lumber, it needs to be cut and stickered inside the house for at least a month, preferably 6 weeks, before it's installed. otherwise you'll get the same shrinkage mentioned from the borg floors.

sanding and finishing isn't exactly fun either. not difficult, but unfun nonetheless.

[Jim Andrew]

If I were going to make my own flooring, I would look at wide plank flooring. The 2 1/4 is just ok but wide, like 5 or 7 would be way cool, and a lot less work, especially making the t and g's, and installing.

[Thomas Bank]

My thoughts are similar to others here - that there isn't that much gain for the time and trouble involved. That is, unless you are going for something not readily available commercially such as a certain wood, wide plank, etc. Standard width oak or such and take a look at Lumber Liquidators unfinished as a starting point.

[David L. Anthony]

I process old lumber for a friend who salvages old houses and barns. I just completed 500 sq.ft. of chestnut for one of his customers. Rod is right, lots of time through the jointer then ripped to width, the planed to thickness. Tongue and grooved on the shaper. He didn't think that relief cuts on the back were necessary so I didn't do them, but this adds another step. There is tons of waste sawdust and cutoffs to dispose of, and in the case of salvage lumber, the occasional tack,cut nail or bullet. He only processes lumber into flooring that will finish out at 5" or more, and can get top dollar for it. I charge him by the hour and he also pays for the blades. It was great looking stuff, but I wouldn't do it for my house. I'm getting Mirage or equivalent engineered prefinished flooring- just install it, and go back to building furniture.

Dave

[brett gallmeyer]

I work at a cabinet shop in colorado. i run a 5 head molding machine. we make our own t&g flooring on this machine. i actuall just got done running $45,000 worth or reclamied barn wood. i would check with local cabinet shops in your area. they may have this kind of machine or may be able to refur you to a shop that does. i'm guessing that tis route would save you time and money ''equipment''. plus you could have it made out of whatever material you wanted.

[Matt Schell]

Do some research and look into some prefinished engineered hardwood. Kahrs makes a nice produce.

Because it is engineered it is much more stable than solid material. You can still refinish it about as many times as solid hardwood (since you can only sand down to the tongue and groove on solid stuff, and some of the high end engineered materials have very little to no bevel so the floor appears to be a finish in place floor. Of course you will pay $5.00+ per square foot but it may be worth the price

[James Suzda]

How difficult is it to mill hardwood flooring? Is it as simple as planing it and putting a tounge-and-groove on it at the router table?

I'm considering laying about 1000 sf of oak throughout my house and did some really quick price calculations. It looks like I could save $800-1000 in materials if I bought the rough lumber and milled it myself. But I thought I'd ask since a lot of things seem easier than they end up being. :D

I wouldn't try doing a 1000 feet of flooring with a router table and a table saw unless you have a lot of time on your hands. I did one job for a guy who had a bunch of air dried red oak that he wanted flooring made out of. (I will never take on a job like that again because all of the time involved cutting out the bad areas out of the lumber!) Anyway, I have a shaper equipped with a power feeder and a set of cutters to mill the ends of the boards and a Woodmaster 712 to mill the edges of the boards. I also have the gang saw on my Woodmaster to rip each board to the exact same width. You cannot have any variation of widths because when you install the flooring all the boards have to be the same if they are to butt up well. Before I got the cutters for the Woodmaster I was going to try to do everything with the shaper and it just didn't work out well because even with a bunch of feather boards, and other jigs to try to hold the lumber tight to the cutters the edges just wouldn't mill correctly or to my satisfaction. I never did get the 1200 SF of flooring done for the guy because he ran out of lumber. We only ended up with about a thousand feet. I suppose given enough time you could mill the edges with a router table, but it would take a long time to complete.

[Larry Edgerton]

Also, the prefinished flooring will hold up much better over time.

Greg

This blanket statement has no basis in fact whatsoever.......

[Greg Cuetara]

This blanket statement has no basis in fact whatsoever.......

From everything that I have seen ANY factory applied finish will last longer. If you apply a finish in an environmentally controlled room it will come out better and it will last longer than if applied in the field. There is no way to perfectly recreate the correct temperature and humidity in the field. This can be done in a controlled atmosphere in a finishing shop. If all things are perfect for the finish it will cure better, quicker and more durable. If it doesn't cure better in a shop then why do shops have finishing rooms which are environmentally controlled?

I would like to see the facts which show an in place finish will outlast a factory applied finish. From the research I have done the prefinished flooring has more coats of finish which will give it more durability over time now this may be just the specific products I was looking at but it makes sense to me.

[Paul Steiner]

I just finished putting HW in my house, it has been a 2 year project I did in sections. In my upstairs hallway I used bruce gunstock prefinished oak. This is about 100sq ft and I got this bruce at lowes %50 off because the boxes were open. I completed the hallway last summer.
To finish of the bedrooms this past month I bought st.michaels carmel oak from lumber liquidators, it is identical to bruce flooring. The carmel oak was $2.15 a square foot, Bruce is $4. The carmel oak is #2 grade that means there are some knots and some pieces need a groove or tongue on the end. These defects did not slow me down and everything looks great.
Personally I do not think you will save any money milling your own. I would put your efforts into other things for the floor project like maybe creating inlay work or custom trim.

[Neal Clayton]

From everything that I have seen ANY factory applied finish will last longer. If you apply a finish in an environmentally controlled room it will come out better and it will last longer than if applied in the field. There is no way to perfectly recreate the correct temperature and humidity in the field. This can be done in a controlled atmosphere in a finishing shop. If all things are perfect for the finish it will cure better, quicker and more durable. If it doesn't cure better in a shop then why do shops have finishing rooms which are environmentally controlled?

I would like to see the facts which show an in place finish will outlast a factory applied finish. From the research I have done the prefinished flooring has more coats of finish which will give it more durability over time now this may be just the specific products I was looking at but it makes sense to me.

whether or not that's true no floor finish is both permanent and maintenance free, so it doesn't really matter.

i have some 100+ year old floors with the original finish on them that are holding up pretty well, and some others upstairs that weren't maintained well at all.

the only difference in the good and bad is the good was religiously cleaned and waxed over the decades, and the bad was used, abused, covered over with carpet, and forgotten about.

and none of them were done in a climate controlled area because there was no climate control in 1908.