2" T&G car decking

[Don P]

I've been planing and T&G routing some 4/4 ambrosia maple flooring for the wine room in the house we're working on. It's not moulder quality but it works ok.

[mmhailey]

Well I finally got my T&G flooring, from the kiln, and am ready to start installing. It is 1 1/2" thick by 5 1/2" wide. The boards are going down on 2X12 floor joists on 16" centers. I have 3" galvanized rink shanks for my nail gun, and a couple of cases of PL400 adhesive, and am planning on blind nailing through the tongue.

My question is do I need to have each board break over a joist, or will the T&G support the board in the middle. It seems obvious to me that it would be sturdier to have the seam over the joist, but on a test I did, I can't get the nail gun to shoot into the end of the board over the joist without cracking, since I am so close to the end.

[beenthere]

It is a dilema, but if the tongue and the groove fit well, and being the joists are 16" oc, if me, I'd let the end joints fall where they may. It will look more random too, rather than having joints line up across the floor and identifying the joist locations.

[Gary_C]

Some will use biscuts on the ends to prevent movement. You will still get dust sifting thru the crack, but without any underlayment you will probably have that anyway. The other method on the ends is to glue or screw a board underneath the ends.

[kfhines]

Over time an unsupported joint will probably weaken. I would land on a joist,  drill & c'sink a pilot hole then nail or screw it down. If you angle the drill bit a little you should be able to set the hole back far enough as to not split the end. Just don't over torque the screw. A little more time consuming but worth the piece of mind.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  Put adhesive on the end of the boards and do a 5 or 10 degree back cut.  It will give a bit more glue area and on some not so good cuts will not show up as bad.  You can sand down the edges later.

[mmhailey]

Arkansawyer:

Are you saying at each butt joint to miter a 5 degree joint and glue the ends together? I could see how that would definitely give more gluing surface and better support? I currently do not own a biscuit joiner, but also see where that could be a help. I may try tomorrow using my router and a spline on the butt joint to see if that is feasible.

I went through my 2420 lineal feet of 2X6 T&G today, and chop sawed out the waste. I ended up with 975' of usable flooring. That was a bit of disappointment, as I wasn't expecting quite so much waste, but as they say " it is what it is" 

I will definitely be spanning joists!

[mmhailey]

Well I racked, measured, and cut my flooring. I also conducted a test of joist spanning with some scrap. The bottom line is I ended up with enough clear, that I'll be able to complete the butt joints over a joist. Here are some pics of the 1 1/2" Alaskan Hemlock T&G that is ready to be put down. It is al clear, with the exception of the worm holes in a few pieces, that my wife really likes the look of. I am working on a siding job right now, and will save this for inclement weather days. I'll get some more pics of the progress.  Thanks for everyones help, and I hope this thread can help someone else as much as has helped me.

 

[mmhailey]

We got to work on the floor for the last few days. Let's see what have I learned?

The 3 1/4 Ring Shanks hold better, but need to be shot at just the right angle and position or the dry hemlock has a tendency to crack. I had tried some 2 1/2 galv rings. The were easy to shoot, but didn't hold down the crooked or warped boards to my satisfaction. Here is a close up of the worm pecked boards next to the clear. I didn't know if I would like them at first, but the wife was right ( aren't they always?)
 



I have been able to seat and straighten every board with a block and a sledge, then snug it up tight with a long handled extra large screwdriver. It is certainly a learned skill holding the screwdriver in one hand and shooting the nail gun with the other. It definitely is better with a helper.
 



The PL400 subfloor adhesive seems to dry in 24 hours, and snugs up the boards well.

I now know, why they call it car decking... When you put down 1 1/2" T&G over full 2" joists on 16" centers you could drive a car anywhere in the room... 

 



We are now starting to talk about finishes. Has anyone heard or used a product called Gym Seal? Everyone around here raves about it's durability.

[beenthere]

Gym seal is what I used 40 years ago on our oak floors. Was recommended to do two coats, but I put on 3 coats. The floors still look great (my opinion, anyway) after 40 years. There are some affects of wear but mostly things like the flat iron, door stop, dropped furniture, etc. that were accidents and small gouges/dents.  But the finish, even in the hallway to the bedrooms which gets ALL the traffic, are holding up well on the finish.
I think the 3rd coat is what made the real difference. Friends who did their floors about the same time, and only used 2 coats were not as lucky with the high traffic areas.

Your floor looks great.

[mmhailey]

I just wanted to follow up on this thread. The floor has been down now coming up on a year. I've had no issues so far with cupping, loose boards, or squeaks.

I hand scraped the floor using a a scrub plane. I did this at joints that were a little uneven, and to add a little character. I was a bit timid in how many marks I left. Now we wish we had done more. They ended up giving the floor in our opinion a great look.

For finishing we ended up using a product  called Waterlox. I put down 3 coats, and have been impressed so far. We just sweep, vacuum, and occasional damp mop, as you would any other floor.  The gaps between the boards are noticeable, as you would expect. Basically it is a rustic floor, and is just what we were looking for.

This is not a great picture of the floor, but the only one I have that shows the finish.

 



Again thanks for everyone's input. I plan on using this same floor in a project I am involved with currently.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  A job well done!   Do you know that people pay good money for a floor like that?

[Oregon_Sawyer]

Sure looks good for something that started out to be a possible sub-floor.  I have a hunch we are looking at the permanent floor.

In my log house I used 2X6 T&G Fir (a lot of #1) as a sub-floor for the main floor of our day-light basement home.  We then poured concrete on top of it.  Oh yeah,  the radiant floor tubes were in the concrete in between nailers.  Then I laid a random width and length Oregon White Oak floor on top.