Flooring to protect existing pine floor

[Herv Peairs]

Interesting idea. What thickness of masonite do you use?

Wait. I got confused and temporarily equated masonite and mdf. The hardboard I see on the borg sites is mostly about 1/4" thick. I like the price per square foot and the simple installation. I wonder if I could skip the brown paper, this not being a museum.

The only possible concern is traction.

Maybe I need to stop woodworking in my socks.

[Brian Behrens]

I just did my whole shop (about 1000 sf) with the "luxury vinyl planks". I caught a sale at Lowe's, it was about 1.75 sf. They are cheap, installation well, and it's holding up great. It looks really nice too .The ones I used are a floating floor, it locks together just like laminate .The weight is very low .

[Jim Becker]

Herv, the rosin paper helps protect the floor from any dirt that gets under the hard-board surface....that stuff can grind a floor in a nasty way. I'd probably tape the seams of the hard-board, too, if I were going to do this and planned on any machine mobility.

[Tom M King]

It's not too slick to matter, but anything on wheels rolls easily on it, and it's easy to sweep. The first time we used it, we taped the seams, but never have since. The paper saves even having to vacuum anything but the edges when you take it up. It's just as clean as how you had the floor when you covered it up.

My portable saw is a Unisaw with a long table to the right that is on a mobile base, and we use a 3hp 4 bagger DC that rolls around on it too, along with a full complement of other stuff in the woodworking tool rooms, but the floor looks just like that in the plaster picture, with the Masonite down.

As you can see in the plaster picture, we don't even cut it any more to do all butt joints (but I probably would in your case), but just overlap whole sheets for the last row, and it's never been a trip hazard. Wheels even roll over the 1/8" jump with little trouble. What you see in that picture was used in several other locations, both before that picture in 2012, as well as since, and it's still in use.

I've never measured it, but it's probably not even a full 1/8" thick.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

It's not too slick to matter, but anything on wheels rolls easily on it, and it's easy to sweep. The first time we used it, we taped the seams, but never have since. The paper saves even having to vacuum anything but the edges when you take it up. It's just as clean as how you had the floor when you covered it up.

My portable saw is a Unisaw with a long table to the right that is on a mobile base, and we use a 3hp 4 bagger DC that rolls around on it too, along with a full complement of other stuff in the woodworking tool rooms, but the floor looks just like that in the plaster picture, with the Masonite down.

As you can see in the plaster picture, we don't even cut it any more to do all butt joints (but I probably would in your case), but just overlap whole sheets for the last row, and it's never been a trip hazard. Wheels even roll over the 1/8" jump with little trouble. What you see in that picture was used in several other locations, both before that picture in 2012, as well as since, and it's still in use.

I've never measured it, but it's probably not even a full 1/8" thick.

I'm borrowing this technique Tom. Been using the same approach, but with 1/2" CDX. It's fairly rough and the overlaps are a little big though, I'm switching!