Hardwood flooring T&G dimensions (cross section)

[Mark Bolton]

Anyone know off hand what the standard dimensions are mainly for distance from the finish face down to the top of the tongue/groove for standard flooring? This of course is pertaining to the nailer placing the nail in nailing groove.

I have only found some references on woodtech toolings site though they dont call out these dimensions but the T&G looks centered on a piece of 3/4" flooring.

I have a small run for a customer that will be using an actuated nailer and wanted to make sure I didnt run the T&G too high/low. Scoured the shop for a scrap of commercial flooring but dont have any.

Thanks,
Mark

[Jamie Buxton]

I have a scrap piece at hand. It is .76" thick. The tongue is .27" thick, and its top is .29" from the top face of the flooring. (The bottom edge of the tongue is .18" from the bottom of the flooring.) That is, the tongue is quite a bit lower than centered on the flooring.

[Mark Bolton]

Thanks Jamie,
The .29 dimension is the one I was looking for. The material I am running is 7/8 thick. I am just not sure how critical that dimension is with regards to the nailer hitting the plow for the nail head.

Thanks again,
Mark

[Peter Quinn]

I work for a company that makes a lot of custom flooring. I just measured a few pieces of our, and I got :


.300" from the face of the floor to the top of the tongue.
.250" tongue thickness
.220" from the bottom of the tongue to the bottom of the reliefs.

overall thickness is .775 on our flooring. Not sure where my other .005" went?

[Mark Bolton]

Thanks Peter,
I figured you would chime in, I have spoken with you before about running flooring, didnt think you'd be at work though.

Mark

[Peter Quinn]

Not at work today, but sadly I have a bunch of flooring samples at my home. I take home interesting odd end cuts of different species to make small things, drawer pulls, dutchman and other repairs. What species are you running this time?

[Rick Moyer]

Has flooring gotten smaller over the years like dimensioned lumber has?

Why I ask: I bought some to replace an area where a wall and closet were removed and found that the new stuff was about 1/64" or more smaller in both width and height. This of course meant that the tongues and grooves didn't match up well with the old flooring, the smaller width eventually shows the gap, and the top surfaces did not meet smoothly. I had to do some engineering to make it work, and it's still not great.

I decided I will now just remove the flooring from another area (upstairs closet) that matches the original flooring, and put the new stuff in the closet to replace what I take out. I guess this should have been the original plan, but I thought I had found a perfect match in new flooring. Is this the 'only' way you "pros" do this?

[Mark Bolton]

Peter,
This is just a small run (210sq') of random width Beech. 9" wide on the widest boards and about 4" for the narrowest. Mostly 5"-7" wide.

Its some local material (KD rough) we have been getting a real good deal on ($0.35/bf). Ran it all yesterday afternoon. Got a couple more loads of it headed to the shop but no flooring in sight thankfully.

Running these random width jobs I really want to set up some sort of quicker back fence setup. Perhaps some scales on the sides of the shaper as I recall seeing here in a post a long while back. It would make running the different widths a lot faster.

Mark

[Mark Bolton]

Rick,
That was going to be my suggestion. Whenever we are repairing a hardwood floor thats the route we usually go, robbing the same material from a closet and replacing that material with the new stuff.

It works better that way for all the reasons, same material, color will match better, etc..

As for material changing sizes, I have never found a true "standard" for strip oak flooring. It always seems to vary a bit from different sources.

Good Luck,
Mark

[Josiah Bartlett]

Flooring dimensions have varied considerably over the years. If you are trying to make flooring to match existing, you will want to base it off an existing piece.

My house was built circa 1890 and has a 1920 addition. The 1890 part of the house has 1-1/4 thick by 3-1/2" wide fir TNG flooring and the addition has 1" thick by 3-1/4" inch wide. Both have the tongues centered on the board and are milled square. Most commonly available stuff now is 3/4" and has the tongue offset and rounded over. Also, installed flooring is typically planed or sanded level from the top so the thickness could have been something different to start with.

[Peter Quinn]

Peter,
This is just a small run (210sq') of random width Beech. 9" wide on the widest boards and about 4" for the narrowest. Mostly 5"-7" wide.

Its some local material (KD rough) we have been getting a real good deal on ($0.35/bf). Ran it all yesterday afternoon. Got a couple more loads of it headed to the shop but no flooring in sight thankfully.

Running these random width jobs I really want to set up some sort of quicker back fence setup. Perhaps some scales on the sides of the shaper as I recall seeing here in a post a long while back. It would make running the different widths a lot faster.

Mark

We have a dedicated shaper set up to run wide plank that has two steel angle irons taped into the infeed and outfeed sides of the table. In these angle irons are holes drilled on 1" spaces, and the back fence has pins which index these holes. The machinist at work set it up so you can switch sizes very quickly for the tongue cuts on random width orders, or repeat an additional run quite quickly. Often they change sizes just to keep moving and go back to finish an order as more material becomes available, so repeatability is certainly an issue. It might be worth considering if you do enough of it. I know another guy that uses a back fence a lot for S4S, and he has one set of holes, multiple widths of back fence, so he just as one back fence plate for each size he needs and switches those out. Check also the martin site for Aigner stuff. They have a great back fence set up that even if not purchased may give some design inspiration.

[Ed Hazel]

Peter,
This is just a small run (210sq') of random width Beech. 9" wide on the widest boards and about 4" for the narrowest. Mostly 5"-7" wide.

Mark

Do you need to do anything special to install 9' wide flooring, can you just nail the tongue as normal. Is cupping a issue?

[Mark Bolton]

Peter,
Thanks for the info,.. what does your shop run for a backfence? aluminum extrusion? And how long?

I have thought about the indexed setup but as whacky as it sounds I often get small runs with small lots of a given species where we are trying to get every inch so running an 8 3/4" board down to 8" (because thats the next indexed location) wouldnt really work. I suppose I could stagger holes on 1/2" centers or even closer.

Its a great idea. Way better than aligning a fence with scales and the repeatability would be the nuts.

I hate to make the process any easier because its a sucky job anyway but it seems to pop up pretty regular and for s4s it would be nice too.

Thanks again,
Mark

[Brad Shipton]

Mark, I can understand your need to adjust quickly to 1/8" of an inch. I did a random width batch of flooring recently and I had 7", 6.5", 8.25", 9" and 10.25" widths. I started using the outboard fence setup a few years ago after chatting with Peter. I wound up making a wooden one similar to the Aigner and after wearing that one out I made my own out of aluminum. With a small machinist square and a caliper I can quickly re-set either very accurately. Here are a couple of pics if you are interested.

If you like the aluminum, I would go direct to Aigner. After getting all the parts for this, I don't think I saved enough and I didn't wind up with a mounted caliper. The hinges I found also have a small amount of flex. I do like that I do not have a T-square sticking out to run in to.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj176/Brad805/Shop/DSC02586-sm.jpg

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj176/Brad805/Shop/DSC02587-sm.jpg

And the Wood version: Very Cheap and worked great. The fence wings were by far the most time consuming.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj176/Brad805/Shop/DSC01506-sm.jpg

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj176/Brad805/Shop/DSC01507-sm.jpg

Brad

[Rick Moyer]

Rick,
That was going to be my suggestion. Whenever we are repairing a hardwood floor thats the route we usually go, robbing the same material from a closet and replacing that material with the new stuff.

It works better that way for all the reasons, same material, color will match better, etc..

As for material changing sizes, I have never found a true "standard" for strip oak flooring. It always seems to vary a bit from different sources.

Good Luck,
Mark

Thanks Mark.

[Mark Bolton]

Mark, I can understand your need to adjust quickly to 1/8" of an inch. I did a random width batch of flooring recently and I had 7", 6.5", 8.25", 9" and 10.25" widths.
Brad

Brad,
That was basically my situation and has been on many jobs. Running several closely spaced widths. A real PITA. I really like your setup and am looking at the pictures more.

What stinks, though its not a big deal, is I am just running a 5hp spindle shaper so my table depth in front of the spindle is not very deep. I have been toying around with some other ideas but seeing your slider on the shaper is what I have always wanted.

Oddly, I happen to have a 9' slider off a panelsaw (have the whole saw actually) and have often wondered about adapting the slider to the shaper though I could never get it close to the spindle.

Im definitely going to have to work something up like your setup for the next batch.

Thanks,
Mark