Any advice on making wood flooring?

[Bill Wyko]

I have a customer that wants me to make his wood flooring and furniture to match. I can handle the furniture but I'm at a loss when it comes to making wood flooring. I know how to install it but the making is the issue. Thanks.

[Ronald Kellison]

I made red oak flooring for my foyer a few years ago. I started with 5/4 x 6" air-dried rough boards and finished with 4 1/2" x 3/4" tongue and grooved boards. After sanding I finished with a pecan stain and 4 coats of water-based poly designed for floors. The final coverage is about 180 sq. feet.

The process wasn't hard. . . just tedious! I cross-cut the boards to eliminate as much warp as possible but cut nothing less than 24". I then ripped everything to 5" width, face jointed one face and edge on my old Craftsman jointer, and ran the boards through my Dewalt 733 to final thickness. I then did the final rip to width before using a matched 1/2" tongue and groove cutter set in my LV router table to finish the job.

As I said above, the job was tedious. I started the process with heavy boards that were 8' long, and I must have moved each piece of wood at least a dozen times during the process! My garage shop isn't large so I also had the problem of where to stack the stuff during milling.

The three principal advantages of doing this from scratch were 1) rough lumber is much cheaper than finished flooring, 2) I was able to use a width of flooring that is not available commercially, and 3) the satisfaction of knowing that I did all the work from start to finish.

Regards,


Ron

[Sean Kinn]

How much are we talking? What type of wood? I know I've seen some smaller mills offer unfinished flooring in my area before (in species that weren't necessarily readily available elsewhere). Might not be quite as cheap as 100% DIY, but could save you hours and hours of endless milling since this job is on the clock and not for yourself.

[Andrew Long]

Did my colonial home in random width wide Cherry planks milled off our property when we cleared part of it.

As stated, not difficult (skill level), just monotonous and tedious. Plane 2S to thickness, edge joint 1S straight, rip to width, cut grooves, then cut tongues.

Bit of advice, you want a Shaper for cutting tongue and groves, unless you're doing a very small run of lumber. You want nice kiln dried lumber for milling, and make sure the boards acclimate well prior to installing.

If your doing this for a client, you'll have a ton of labor hours involved, and as someone stated, many mills can do tongue and grove planks for flooring for a reasonable charge. Mine was strictly a labor of love for my own home and saving many nice Cherry trees that otherwise may have become firewood.

[Bill Wyko]

Thanks Guys, I'll find out how much SQ FT this is and his wife wants to look at some woods. |This may be the excuse to get a Wood master.;)

[Peter Quinn]

I ran a 7 head thru molder in a flooring mill for a while, making custom flooring of all species. I have occasionally made small amounts in my home shop. I strongly encourage you to outsource that one unless the job pays for the cutters (they aren't cheap) and a few jigs (cheap but necessary things like a straight line jig for the TS and a back fence for the shaper). Its much easier with two people, so adding a helper might be worth it.

You don't need to flatten ANY faces on a jointer, in fact you don't need a jointer at all. This is flooring, not furniture. Flattening is a waste of time and money for typical strip flooring. I'd start with skim planned 4/4, typically 15/16" to read the grain. It would be worth at least ordering the stock skim planed to make reading the grain easier, and S1S to make ripping easier. Unless its a parquet or herringbone long lengths are typically preferred by most customers.

If the money is there, you are willing to submit your self to the tedium and you REALLY like the customers its easy enough to do. Be happy to tell the few things I know about it if you think you want to do it.

[Brad Shipton]

I made my own Jatoba (see pic) and finished in place (about 600sq ft thus far). Its a lot of work, but you can make wide long wide boards since you will use a better grade than many hardwood companies and you dont need the micro bevel since it will not be pre-finished. I could have had up to 12' lengths if I had space in my shop to handle such pieces, but in the end my longest turned out to be 9'. What do you want to use for tools? I used a shaper and a sliding table saw. It sounds like you are a production guy, so you probably have a far better planer and jointer than I did. I used a 12" Hammer J/P, that was not quite good enough to work with the Jatoba. Lots of power, just too small a head diameter, not enough knives and without a slow enough planer speed I did end up dealing with a little more tearout than I liked after the install. Heres what i learned:

1. Wood Species: Make sure to consider your machines before picking out the species. Probably does not apply to you.
2. Power feeder is a must.
3. Wide boards will not flex when you install, so if you are fussy, pay close attention to straight lining. My next batches will be oversized to allow final straightening with an outboard fence on the shaper.
4. Sand in place when done. Its not that bad since you do not have a finish to remove and if you get a sander equipped with a vacuum it is not the messy. I sanded in place without a mask and my dylos never exceeded a reading of 1500.
5. T&G Tooling: I used a Weinig Flooring head for making the T&G. It was pretty pricey since the blades are the insert style and it is Weinig. LRH makes a good set with the nail notch for a few bucks less.
6. Relief Cuts: Some do not make relief cuts. Up to you. Lots of discussion on the woodweb regarding this point. I did opt to make relief cuts with an insert head on the shaper.
7. Wood Waste: I bought 4/4 stock, so about 1/4" gets tossed. 300sqft of flooring resulted in 5 - 45gal buckets of sawdust.
8. End matching: Some do not. For me it was easy since I have a slider on the shaper. Two hours to end match 300sqft.
9. Finishing: I did it myself, but I live in an area where there really is no professional hardwood floor finishers. I used Bona Traffic, but there are a ton of options out there.

I tracked my hours for the last batch of 300sq ft. It took 20hrs from rough to ready to install. I did not track the sanding and finishing.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj176/Brad805/DSC01531-sm.jpg

Personally, if you have access to a moulder shop nearby I would check into this first. You can spec the species, grade, desired lengths, and they will fire this stuff out in no time. By moulder, i mean a company such as those Peter is chatting about.

Brad

[Peter Quinn]

Brad, beautiful floor!

Another good source for flooring cutters is Freeborn. They make three wing carbide stacks with different bores for molders and shapers with the proper geometry for flooring (nailing slots and a relief on one side of the T&G are critical so standard T&G cutters don't work). Not cheap either, but durable. We ran those on Weinig and Wadkin molders.

If your species is figured, price in a spiral planer head if you don't have one. If its very hard consider cobalt or carbide tipped planer knives, or at least several changes of HSS. If its teak, consider leaving the country.:D

[Jeff Duncan]

I'll just second what Peter said!
JeffD

[Brad Shipton]

Peter:
Thanks for the compliment. It was a lot of work and learning, but interesting. I dont know if i saved a dime on the first two batches, but the next ones will be better.

I did send a couple of samples to a Byrd re-seller to see how it would turn out. It was quite a bit better, but still a little tearout. I will fess up and admit to picking out some fairly nasty pieces for the tests. Since Byrd doesnt offer a head for my machine yet it would have ran about $1500 for a custom head or close to half the cost of a 15" widebelt.

Brad