QSWO flooring question

[Jason Chapman]

Hey guys, this is my first post but I've been reading the forum for quite a while. I've also read all the flooring posts I could find but I still want some advice/opinions... I have a customer who wants me to make her 550 sq ft of qswo flooring. Not sure if I want to tackle it. I have a lot of recently felled large diameter logs so i should be able to get all 5-8" boards, which means less number of boards to handle. I have a 5hp shaper with tongue and groove cutters, jointer and large planer. Everything would be edged on an edger. My main questions are: should I even consider this? if so, how much should I mill to account for all the waste of drying and edging? Thanks in advance

[Jim Becker]

How long is your customer willing to wait for the flooring? If you're starting out with green wood, you'll need time for air drying followed by kiln time. Even under the best circumstances, it's going to be quite a few months before you could deliver finished material from that stock. You have the tools to generally prepare the material once it's dry, although you're going to need a power feeder and appropriate tooling for your shaper. It will be a bit of work for you if it's not something you normally do...

[Rod Sheridan]

I have made flooring for myself using a saw, shaper and jointer planer.

I’ve also made it commercially with a gang rip and sticker.

There’s no way I would make flooring for a customer by hand, would your customer actually pay the cost for hand made flooring.

[Martin Wasner]

It's a small amount, so it wouldn't be that bad on a tablesaw, planer and shaper. A whole house would be misery though, that's work best done with a moulder.

Straight line
Rip
Surface
Surface
Defect
End match
Edge
Edge
Relief cut

Can you sub it out to a moulding shop? I can't remember for sure, but the one I use charges something like $.17/ft to run through the moulder. $75 for setup. Shouldn't have to have knives cut.

Might be easier money

[Jason Chapman]

How long is your customer willing to wait for the flooring? If you're starting out with green wood, you'll need time for air drying followed by kiln time. Even under the best circumstances, it's going to be quite a few months before you could deliver finished material from that stock. You have the tools to generally prepare the material once it's dry, although you're going to need a power feeder and appropriate tooling for your shaper. It will be a bit of work for you if it's not something you normally do...

The customer wants to have it installed in June or July, so I was planning on starting to saw now, let it air dry a month or so then throw it in the kiln. I've go the power feeder and shaper cutters to make it. No, the customer doesnt really want to pay for quarter sawn but I only quarter saw oak, never flat saw, so the sawing is the least of my worries. Trying to figure out waste is one of my biggest concerns. I really want to do it because it would look amazing, but I really don't want to learn the hard way how long it will take. Providing the lumber to a molder would be ideal, thanks for that idea

[Jason Chapman]

Sorry, Martin gets the thanks for the moulding shop idea...

[Warren Lake]

jointer, planer, table saw, stroke sander, 4/4 rough Honduras mahog, towards 40 years plus ago when it was easy to get that material.

404325

[Richard Coers]

A month for air drying white oak this time of year isn't going to give you much of a start at drying.

[Patrick Walsh]

No way man I’d just source the material already milled and resell it. If the customer just had to know I had made it by hand or out of a specific log or something like that I’d do as suggested above and source it out to millwork shop already setup and say nothing to the client.

I have a pile of Birdseye i once upon a time considered making flooring out of when I did not know better. I would never consider it now knowing how little it would cost to have someone do the work for me while I made money doing something more lucrative and or fun.

[Patrick Walsh]

Nice floor Warren!!!..............


jointer, planer, table saw, stroke sander, 4/4 rough Honduras mahog, towards 40 years plus ago when it was easy to get that material.

404325

[Jason Chapman]

jointer, planer, table saw, stroke sander, 4/4 rough Honduras mahog, towards 40 years plus ago when it was easy to get that material.

404325

Dang, that is amazing

[Jason Chapman]

You guys have pretty much convinced me to spend my time doing what I'm good at, which is not making flooring. Thanks for the help!

[Tom M King]

Good choice!

[Sam Beagle]

Graf brothers makes a great QS product. Call them

[Scott T Smith]

You guys have pretty much convinced me to spend my time doing what I'm good at, which is not making flooring. Thanks for the help!

Wise choice. There is no way that a little guy can make QSWO flooring - at a price competitive with the big guys (Graf), and make a good profit.

You're typically looking at 20% - 30% waste in the log (ie 1K bd ft of oak logs will net you 700 - 800 bd ft of dry QS), then you're looking at another 30% or so of waste when you pre-size your moulding blanks and then mould the profiles. So 1000 bd ft of logs will net you around 500 - 600 sq.ft of completed flooring.

If I start with customer logs, and take them through completion, usually the QS flooring will cost the customer around $6.00 per square foot - not including what it cost them to harvest and transport the logs to me.

[Jason Chapman]

Thanks Scott, those are the kind of numbers I'm looking for. Log supply is not an issue but the time to cut the extra board feet to account for moulding waste is significant. $6 a foot still seems a little cheap for flooring when qswo lumber goes for close to that. I'm thinking I'll do a test run on some 4/4 I just pulled out of the kiln and do an honest time measurement per board. Worst case I spend a day messing with it and have some flooring to put in a closet...