homemade T&G machine

[Michael Conner]

I am in the initial phases of building a house. I have a stockpile of lumber that I milled myself and would like to tongue and groove several thousand board feet to use for flooring. I have a woodmaster planer and I looked into purchasing their 3-sided molding attachment that would let me do this. Although the money saved making my own flooring would pay for the attachment, I have been thinking of making my own.

I am thinking that two routers could be placed side by side, one upright and the other upside down as in a router table (as in the woodmaster design). A roller table on the input and output sides could help with feeding lumber and hold-down wheels could be placed on either side of the routers to hold the wood flat as it passes between the bits. I could even see using automatic feed.

I would appreciate any comments on this while I am in the planning stage. Also, if anyone has ever done anything like this (milling 2 edges at the same time), I'd appreciate hearing how you did it.

Thanks.

Mike

[Peter Pedisich]

Michael,

Try the EZ Smart (Eurekazone) forum here on SMC, I'm sure they are up to the challenge.

-pete

[Ken Lustgarten]

Why not go with something like this?


Freud Adjustable T & G Bit Set

99125

[Michael Conner]

I actually have the SRK. I suppose something could be done along those lines. I may have to pop down to the Eureka Zone to see if they have done anything like this. I still think some sort of in feed and out feed table will be need to machine this much wood. Some sort of power feed would be helpful as well.

[Ken Lustgarten]

I actually have the SRK. I suppose something could be done along those lines. I may have to pop down to the Eureka Zone to see if they have done anything like this. I still think some sort of in feed and out feed table will be need to machine this much wood. Some sort of power feed would be helpful as well.

I to have EurekaZone products including the SRK, very nice stuff! Yes a power feed would be very nice for that many board feet. I was just thinking economy wise that a bit set like this used in a large router freehand would get the job done, although it would take some time. Ok for 1 room but for a whole house:eek: I have seen 2 routers on a pbb in one of the videos so I know they have done this before. Watch the video of the SET table in it you will see a router mounted on a bridge, you could mount 2 routers instead. Note that it has a fence on one side and a spring loaded hold down on the other side to keep the wood against the fence. Feather boards should work for this also. You could make one yourself without to much trouble and for low $ if you use wood to make it instead of alluminum. Maybe you need an self-loading power fed SRK :D.

[Neal Clayton]

I am in the initial phases of building a house. I have a stockpile of lumber that I milled myself and would like to tongue and groove several thousand board feet to use for flooring. I have a woodmaster planer and I looked into purchasing their 3-sided molding attachment that would let me do this. Although the money saved making my own flooring would pay for the attachment, I have been thinking of making my own.

I am thinking that two routers could be placed side by side, one upright and the other upside down as in a router table (as in the woodmaster design). A roller table on the input and output sides could help with feeding lumber and hold-down wheels could be placed on either side of the routers to hold the wood flat as it passes between the bits. I could even see using automatic feed.

I would appreciate any comments on this while I am in the planning stage. Also, if anyone has ever done anything like this (milling 2 edges at the same time), I'd appreciate hearing how you did it.

Thanks.

Mike

if you have the third roller attachment for the woodmaster you can accomplish the same thing, just not cutting both the tongue and the groove simultaneously. i don't see why you couldn't cut all of the tongues, then swap bits and cut all of the grooves after. as long as you don't move the fences you'd only need to zero out the depth after changing bits.

if i remember correctly the third roller attachment was only 300-400 dollars and includes the router mounting hardware, in that respect it's not that bad a deal, imo.

fwiw, i've never liked the idea of cutting multiple faces/edges with routers simultaneously on that woodmaster. 3 motors and 2 independent cutters is alot of room for error. if a board splits when you've got 2 or worse yet, 3 different motors running 3 different cutters the results could make for some interesting chunks of wood flying through the air at worst, or at best, broken routers.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Michael, I made tongue and groove flooring however I used a shaper.

Normally the entire edge is milled away, not just the tongue or groove.

This is done by running the work between an outboard fence and the cutter, using a power feeder. Don't try this by hand.

The flooring then comes out exactly the same width on every piece. The router bits shown in one of the postings, doesn't appear to have a center cutter, so you cannot mill the entire edge away. You would have to joint and plane each piece of flooring, an additional two steps of work for every piece.

It was a lot of work using a shaper, I cannot imagine how much more work it would be to use a small bit in a router table.

Regards, Rod.

[Paul Greathouse]

Michael

That could be done and would be an interesting setup but I did something similar that might be easier for you. I used the grooving bit from the set that Ken mentioned to make some groove & groove 1X12 Pine for the walls of my shop. I ripped strips of 1/4" cdx ply for a floating tongue.

Instead of trying to set it up in a table I found it would be easier to make a wide base for my D-Handle router that I could easily hold flat and true to the board and do the job free-hand. The base also had a fence for additional control and to prevent any imperfections in the edge of the board from causing problems.

I did have to true up the edges of the board before-hand but it wasn't hard to do with 3 of my EZ rails attached togeather.

One piece of advice, if you haven't already done so, be sure and get the wood kiln dried. My shop is not climate controlled, so I didn't think shrinkage would be a problem. I didn't kiln dry the pine, it had air dried for over a year and it had been stacked in my shop for a couple months before the milling took place but I still had some shrinkage once it was up on the walls.

If you decide to build the routing table that you described, please post some pictures, I would like to see it.

[Peter Quinn]

I suggest you look closely at some commercial flooring samples, very closely, then look at some flooring T&G cutters like those from Schmidt or Freeborn very closely and study the geometry carefully. The Freud cutters above appear to be for joinery, not flooring, and it makes a difference when you start to nail it down.

Flooring cutters typically have a back bevel on the top edge of one side of each board that forces the meeting edges together tightly and minimizes the effects of unevenness in the substrate or movement out of straight in the boards but allows for several sanding/refinishing operations over the life of the floor. Further, flooring cutters have a slight but critical relief milled into the top side if the tongue to allow the nails or staples to be set without splitting the tongues or interfering with the tongue/groove alignment. Failure to include these details in your floor may lead to a need to face nail or screw and bung each board, or cause major problems on installation.

I would suggest milling a small test sample and attempting to nail it to a small sub floor sample before committing to a major production run to see how your product will act under actual conditions. One of the beauties of custom flooring is the ability to use long lengths and avoid the great number of shorts included in much low grade commercial strip flooring offered at many home centers and major flooring distributers. Consider whether your production method can reasonably handle 12'-14' material; of course if you already have the material you know your lengths, so then consider whether or not you can process the longest lengths available to you.

I agree with Rod that short of a multi head through molder (which is by far the most accurate and efficient way to mill flooring, and is in fact the process you are trying to recreate) a shaper with a power feed milling one side of each board off the fence and the other off of a back fence is the next closest thing. Small molders like the wood master excel at face molding, like the bottom relief cuts on flooring, but are weak on edge shaping.

I wouldn't want to discourage your attempt at a two router system, and it seems possible with the right cutters, feed system and careful alignment. But having some experience with both routers and commercial floor production I wonder whether this method is the best use of your time and resources in the context of building a new house? Producing a small sample might give you some idea of the time and effort it will take to produce enough square footage to cover the required surface.

Good luck.

[Rob Russell]

Another question is how are you going to rip the boards into consistent width strips? Table saw with a power feeder and then run them through the planer on edge?

[Neal Clayton]

Hi Michael, I made tongue and groove flooring however I used a shaper.

Normally the entire edge is milled away, not just the tongue or groove.

This is done by running the work between an outboard fence and the cutter, using a power feeder. Don't try this by hand.

The flooring then comes out exactly the same width on every piece. The router bits shown in one of the postings, doesn't appear to have a center cutter, so you cannot mill the entire edge away. You would have to joint and plane each piece of flooring, an additional two steps of work for every piece.

It was a lot of work using a shaper, I cannot imagine how much more work it would be to use a small bit in a router table.

Regards, Rod.

his planer has an accessory shaft that will accept two/more sawblades, so he can rip square boards to precise width that way, in any length he wants.

i agree with peter's point about room-length boards as well, and if you go that route you can face nail them under your baseboards and eliminate the complex tongues/grooves, correct? that's how my ~100 year old floors were done. there are no nails in the interior of any room, only face nails under the baseboards.

[Chris Padilla]

Not to dissuade you from the satisfaction of doing something like this but you might also look into having a shop that is setup to do something like this prepare your flooring for you.

I did a large gate (4' x 7') made of cedar and filled in one section with tongue 'n groove boards (1x6s). I only did 7 boards and they were all the same length but I used my table saw carefully set up to mill the T&G and then used a 45 degree chamfer bit on my router table to just knock a hair off the edges. It all takes time--good luck to you.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Neal, commercially we made flooring using a gang rip saw, and then the strips went through a sticker which removed both edges.

I'm not sure that a gang ripped edge would be nice enough to leave on the flooring?

Regards, Rod.

[Neal Clayton]

i don't re-cut the gang ripped edge on molding i make from the same woodmaster machine he has. it's not smooth enough to finish without sanding in my example, but i would think it's plenty clean enough for a joint.

all of the molding i make is traditional craftsman-style reproduction stuff, most of which fits together with rabbet joints, and i've never had joints that didn't fit on a gang ripped edge.

the edge i get from the gang rip blades on that machine are comparably as smooth as the edges i get from my tablesaw.

[Jason Roehl]

his planer has an accessory shaft that will accept two/more sawblades, so he can rip square boards to precise width that way, in any length he wants.

i agree with peter's point about room-length boards as well, and if you go that route you can face nail them under your baseboards and eliminate the complex tongues/grooves, correct? that's how my ~100 year old floors were done. there are no nails in the interior of any room, only face nails under the baseboards.

I can't imagine room-length boards, with no T&G, and only nailed at the outer ends and edges, would even begin to stay flat and even in the center of the room. That sounds like protruding board city.

[Michael Conner]

WOW, lots of comments. Thanks! Currently, my plans are to kiln dry 4/4 6" wide stock. Plane to 3/4" and cut back relief grooves and then gang rip to 5 1/2". This is where the T & G comes in. Maybe I should use this as an opportunity to buy a shaper with an automatic feeder? I could for less than the woodmaster attachement would cost.

Still, I'd like to try to build a simple set-up to do this using a couple of big routers. I already have the routers, so I would only have some time and a little in materials invested. Of course, I have not thought about cutting multiple sides and boards splitting or chipping as pointed out above. That could get scary.

[Neal Clayton]

I can't imagine room-length boards, with no T&G, and only nailed at the outer ends and edges, would even begin to stay flat and even in the center of the room. That sounds like protruding board city.

they are T&G, but only face nailed at the ends, rather than nailed through the T&G joint throughout.