T&G flooring question

[Jason_WI]

A local mill charges .25 cents a linear foot to make flooring. That adds up when only 3 inch flooring is used to cover 1000+ square feet.

I have a RBI planer/moulder and I'm wondering if running 1000+ square feet of ash flooring through it is feasable? I can buy the T&G knives fairly cheap. How long do you estimate it will take?

I have a process down path.

1) Plane top and bottom to final thickness.

2) Straighten an edge on a jointer.

3) Rip on tablesaw to width + 1/16 inch

4) joint sawn edge on blank to final size

5) repeat process 2 - 4 about 400 times

6) run groove through moulder

7) run tounge through moulder


If I left anything out please let me know.

Jason

[Larry]

The way I do it:

• Plane to proper thickness
• Straight line rip one edge
• Rip to proper width + 1/8" or so
• Run through the Belsaw to cut the back relief
• Run through shaper with stock feeder to cut the groove (use your RBI)
• Run through shaper with stock feeder to cut the tongue and dimension to the proper width...again use your RBI
• Don’t forget all the end trimming you will get to do
• Repeat 400 times ;D

Or come and help me get this machine up and running.

[Den Socling]

Making tongue & groove, v-joint paneling is similar but I start with really rough sawn stuff. The thickness varies and that makes planing the most time consuming part of the job. Multiple passes and constantly readjusting the planer. So I let a local mill make one pass on their big ol' planer, hit & miss to get it to one thickness. Now I can choose the side I want as I feed it into my 15" Grizzly. That leaves one side smooth enough to go up on the wall.

Now I go to my table saw with a 16' extension on a Shop-fox AlumaClassic fence. I can quickly see which side I want to edge first, rip, flip, reset fence and rip again.

Now to my heavy-duty, home made router table. One pass and the tongue and vee is on one side. Change the bit and one pass puts the vee and groove on the other side.

Finally to chop saw to cut to length.

[getoverit]

I have several routers, and have checked out the prices for carbide tongue and groove on e-bay and they look reasonable in price.

I have actually been thinking of making a "flooring jig" using two of the routers. One on one side cutting the tongue, the other one on the other side of the board and cutting the groove. Then a double fence to keep it all straight and in line and just push it through.

It looks like the rig Larry has is basically an industrial version of what I'm talking about, but also includes a 4" planer as well?

I'm all about automation, and dont see why this wouldnt work. any ideas?

[Larry]

You can get T & G router cutters but I have never seen true flooring cutters made for a router.  The flooring cutters have a slightly different profile for a closer fit.

Second problem would be router bits really don’t last very long.

So...guess it would work...just not the best or most productive.

GOI the machine is a light weight 4 head moulder.  In it’s past life it probably made few million square feet of narrow strip flooring.

[Den Socling]

We would all love to have a moulder and I sure wouldn't want to do a 'production quantity' with a router but routers will work for weekend wood workers. I get bits with 1/2" shanks and heavy on the carbide. I have (I would guess) more than 3000 lineal feet of v-joint on the set I'm using.

[HORSELOGGER]

Jason, if the mill will process random , rough lumber into flooring blanks and charge 25 cents for the lin footage that is through the moulder... that is a pretty good deal. You need about 3700 l f of 3 1/4 flooring to cover 1000 sq ft, so if you can drop off about 1700 bd ft of rough lumber ( yes, the loss can easily go that high, I figure a 40 % loss factor on flooring from rough lumber to finished flooring coverage ) and pick it up a couple days later and right a check for abot 1000 bucks...I dont know... I could see a guy making a couple hundred feet with the set up like you are talking about, but a thousand feet would be about like watching paint dry. Like larry mentioned ..the end trimming alone is a substantial time investment. I could run 3700 lf feet through my shop ..ripped and moulded in 5 hours, and there would be an excellent fit. It would be close to double that to end trim and bundle the flooring into 20 foot packs.  Looking at your list, if each operation you could average 15 lf per minute feed rate, you would have about 45 hours of machine time alone, not including handling from station to station, set up times or end trimming. I would guess you would sink 90 or more hours into that project, plus whatever tooling you would need to buy.

[jpgreen]

This is a very interesting subject.  I've been looking at ways to process such materials.  How durable or commercial duty are the RBI Hawk tools?

I looked at the demo, and they are impressive.

What if you took the same scenario posted above and made molding instead of flooring for a small operator's income?

I just bought my mill, and I'm restoring it.

I have a customer that wants me to cut lap siding for them with their logs.  I have the lap siding attachment for my woodmizer.  I was thinking it would be neat to be able to route a groove on the backside so it could fit flat on the wall, and do the whole job right on sight- possibly with a router table like RBI has.

Any thoughts?

[solodan]

Jason
Buy a four sided planer.
Based on the math that HORSELOGGER did for you, you could pay for a new Logosol p-260 with about 8 more jobs this size. If you don't plan on making this much then the $.25 lf from the mill is a pretty good price. It is double that out here.   Time is valuable.

[jpgreen]

Hey- the snow quit and the suns out here Dan.. How bout your place?

[Jason_WI]

I think I will take this load to the mill and have it processed based on what Horselogger has said. 90+ hours is a lot of time that I don't have right now.

I have been looking at the PH260/261 long and hard. I could cash in some stock and order it next week but with this only being a hobby/part time endeaver I don't think that would be cost effective right now. If I decided to go full time with this the PH260 would be first on my list to purchase along with a SLR.

Jason

[Den Socling]

Jason,

If you don't have your own house, start building one. If you have your own house, start remodeling. You will then find all kinds of justification for the investment. 

Den

[solodan]

If you don't have your own house, start building one. If you have your own house, start remodeling. You will then find all kinds of justification for the investment.

I agree, I have never bought a tool or piece of equipment that has not paid for itself. Sometimes, I have only seen the return in equity, but hey it is there if you need it. On that note, I guess I should buy some more stuff.

Hey- the snow quit and the suns out here Dan.. How bout your place?

yeah, it quit snowing this morning. we only got about 8 inches in the last few days, but I think about ten minutes up the hill it was more like a few feet. i'm only at 4500'. In the county I live in, you can go from about 500' to about 12000' in a couple of hours. big difference in weather. JP,  you know what I'm talking about, we live in two of the steepest places on the west coast. I'll try to get a picture this summer of the sign on the  Sonora Pass Highway. The one that reads "26% grade... trucks not advised!"

[Max sawdust]

Jason,
If you don't have your own house, start building one. If you have your own house, start remodeling. You will then find all kinds of justification for the investment. 
Den

 
Ain't that the true

I would much rather invest in a new tool than pay someone else.  It builds equity.   I have countless tools and machines that were aquired for one job and became indispensable on the next and the next and the next.

Max

[FeltzE]

Hey Larry

I got a moulder in the corner of the shop just like yours, except it isn't running yet, bought new cutter heads, keepers, next I've got to get the 3 ph power hooked up and a new starter for one of the motors,

I'm afraid I'll plug it in and find it needs new bearings or something....My pics are too big to post.

Eric

[Ernie_Edwards]

Real basic question here.

How to get that first edge true on an air dried board?

After milling, usually to 4/4, and air drying, I usually can see a bend in the board.

If it is exagerated I will strike a chalk line and try to cut on it but figure there is a better way.

I do have a big jointer but it would take many passes/time to use it to get a straight edge that I could then put against the fence on the tablesaw to rip to the right width.

There has to be a better way to get that first edge.

Also, what is the RBI mentioned in the posts above?

Thanks,

Ernie Edwards

[beenthere]

Ernie
With a jointer, make an extended table (I used 2x6) on both ends of your jointer, and then take the 'horns' off. Need at least the full length of the longest board on each end and level it good.  Sometimes, depending on the board and the grain, most of the 'horn' can be taken off just one end in several short passes.
Another way is to make a 'jig' board for a table saw, that the crooked board can be 'fastened to' and the jig used to make a 'straight-line' rip cut.
Also, depending on the crook in the board, and the length, cross-cutting will salvage some wood by reducing the amount of straightening needed.
Or stacking them up on the sawmill (circle mill works good for that) for a straight cut on several boards at once.
Probably are other ideas, such as a router in a straight jig.

[Ernie_Edwards]

Thanks Beenthere. Never even thought about the sawmill, good idea.

[mur]

Hello Ernie:
The method I use to "straighten" the flooring blank is to put about 8 boards at a time on the manual band mill with the "crown" up.  Make a pass that takes off the crown.  Then turn the boards over putting the "horns" up.  Take another pass to square that side up.  I use the crown up side to go into the jointing edge on the Logosol and the horn side to be the wild edge in the molder.  I have run three batches of fir flooring and the match etc. has been good.  You have to make the blank straight to have good flooring when you are using small machinery.  I use lumber crayon on every board to mark the crowns and the direction I want the board to enter the molder.   Lots of work but it shows in the final product. 

[FeltzE]

When I'm running material for the logosol I cut oversize, kiln dry (Nyle 200) then rip all my blanks on my baker edger. That gives me fairly accruately cut straight and all the same width for the molder

Eric

[solodan]

If I only have a few boards to straighten out, I take a narrow straight board, or piece of ply, put it on top of the board with the straight edge hanging off one side, and then shoot a few pins in it hold them together. Then run the true edge along the fence of the table saw. the pins are strong enough to hold them together but pulled out eaisily enough. You wouldn't want to do a whole bunch this way, as it is time consuming. I have a lucas 827 and have found that it is easiest to mill 1/2 a log as a base to work off of if you are going to resaw or straighten any stuff, otherwise squaring up you're stack of  boards becomes time consuming.