End grain floors

[jim king]

Does anyone know how end grain floor tiles are dried ?    I would think that putting them in a kiln would be a disaster.   

[Ironwood]

Dont know, we have TONS of old industrial floors in warehouses and shops here around Pittsburgh that are end grain.

 Ironwood

[jim king]

Do you remember if the tiles laid tight together and seamless or does the floor have grout like ceramic tile.

[ohsoloco]

I recall seeing an end grain floor being laid on one of those home shows years ago...This Old House or Bob Vila's Home Again.  They started with dry cants (perhaps reusing old timbers) and cross cut them to thickness.  There was a healthy gap in between the tiles, and they were "grouted" with some mixture of sawdust and resin.  Nice looking floor 

[beenthere]

The first end-grain wood floor I remember seeing was in the Alcoa Aluminum plant in Davenport, IA. 1954
It was Douglas fir, and the blocks were about 4" long. Were told they were very easy on the fork trucks and other wheeled equipment moving around with heavy loads. Apparently absorbed a lot of the shock. Being in this mill, and it being a foundry setting, there was plenty of dirt and dust that worked its way into the joints between the blocks.

 A thin tile of end-grain, would be a different problem, and may be troublesome to dry without problem checks.

There would be some tricky sanding to be done if a floor and needed to be flat, and moisture changes that might tend to keep it from staying flat. 

[Ironwood]

The ones I have seen were floating free.

        Ironwood

[Mooseherder]

This is a question asked on and is from the "This Old House Website"

 Q: I've seen floors made of end-cuts of wood. How do you lay this kind of floor? How is it attached to the underlayment, and what's the right grout to use?

A: Tom Silva replies: You don't use a grout. Usually end-grain flooring comes in panels and is applied with a glue. You trowel it on, using probably an 8 by 8 trowel at a 45-degree angle. You put the glue on the floor, tip your trowel up, and it fits little notches in the panels, and then basically it just lays in place. The only ones I've seen have been tongue-and-groove. So you lay the tongue of one panel into the groove of the next, slip the panels together and that's it.

[Fla._Deadheader]

 Here ya go, Jim

  http://www.kaswell.com/

[scsmith42]

Harold, that is a pretty interesting link.

Jim, the basement area of the merchandise mart in Chicago is paved with wood block panels laid back in the '20's.  They do not have grout in-between them.  I don't know how deep they are, I presumed around 6" - 8".

[laffs]

this old house did it with reclaimed timbers sliced about 3/4 thick dont remember what they used for grout. but they laid them then sanded then some sealer. grout im not sure about.
brent

[Fla._Deadheader]

 Scott, did you go to the History section   There is good info on how it was, in the old days .

[jim king]

I am back to the drying.  I have not tried it yet but I think the problems of kiln drying 1 inch thick end grain slices would make a guy very old very quick. 

But maybe when the 4 x 6 peice is not in a round with full tension ans stress from being round it would be easier ?¿?¿  (jungle logic)

Drying a 5 x 7 timber and then slicing it does not seem to be a solution as it would be full of visable cracks and hairline cracks ready to become visable. 

Is the solution simple air drying ??

[Den Socling]

I was standing in a very large and old manufacturing building one time and when I looked down at the floor I was amazed to see that what I had thought was bricks was actually end grain wood. It was cut into rectangles. If there was ever any grout, it was long replaced with dirt. It apparently was very durable since it showed no more wear than adjacent sections of concrete. Thinking back, it could have been put down as "streets" for wheeled machines. So, drying "2 x 4's" may be the way to begin. A 2x4 or 3x5 would see fewer drying stresses than a round, for sure.

[fishpharmer]

Jim King, interesting post.  First I ever heard of flooring or paving with end grain exposed. 
Harold, neat link, I enjoyed the historical information.

[Texas Ranger]

Local bank was built a couple of years ago, the flooring is 4x4 end grain mesquite.  When I was asked, they were put down as individual tiles.  The tiles had been cut from 4x4 cants.  Once down they had only standard wood floor finish applied.  Out standing looking floor, and being mesquite, will be here long after the building is something else.

[Tom]

Grout in the old floors was usually left to the accumulation of dirt, grime, dust, grease and wax from everyday living.  The wide pine flooring that was installed in the lodge I brag about, on the Satilla, has this accumulation and it not only raises the surface of the crack to the level of the wood, but is rather attractive as well, as long as you don't tell prissy people how it happened. 

[jim king]

These are not good photos but you will get the idea of end grain in the tropical woods.  Do you think it would make flooring ?¿  The little blocks are about 4 inches long and the pink wood photo is of a limb and the colored part is about 8 inches in dia.



 


 


 


 

[Fla._Deadheader]

 This is the only other info I could find.

Endgrain is easy to make. Start with air dried for five years plus, cross cut, dry in Nyles, redimension, glue down, finish, and grout.

  From a contributor on another Forum. Shows photo.

  Having used Tropical hardwood, I would think it would be great for flooring.

[Dodgy Loner]

Air-dried for five years plus? Seems a little excessive to me. Once wood reaches equilibrium, it don't get any drier unless the air gets drier.

[scsmith42]

 Scott, did you go to the History section   There is good info on how it was, in the old days .

Harold, I did go to that section - pretty fascinating.  Some of the links were too. 

[Fla._Deadheader]

 Dodgy, I thought that comment was over the top, but, just had to add it to the thread. LOTS of x-perts out there, EH  

  I'm SURE Jim likes the way we hi-jacker his thread.  Sorry, Jim. 

[Ole CB]

  Here are some pictures of the same questions I had posted in soaking walnut.





  These pics were taken in Chicago, Ill. USA. Jim, It seems like we need the same info.

[shinnlinger]

When I was a kid, I remember a mall did end grain flooring and I thought it was pretty neat.  A few months later though it bubbled up as the wood expanded.  Now it has expansion joints avery 10ft ft or so.  I suppose you could reserve the joint for the edges of a room and possibly even cover with trim

SOrt of related, my father in law used to work at a lumber yard in germany just after the war, and he was promoted to kiln operator when the previous kiln guy over dried a batch of flooring for a dance hall and when it expanded it blew the walls out.

[rocksnstumps]

I use to work at a plant in Memphis that had a small section where the machine shop was that had an end grain block floor. About 3" squares probably about the same height.  The machinists said is was way easier on your feet than concrete. No grout other than the accumulation of dirt and oil as mentioned earlier. The milling machines were on concrete pads however. If you looked, you could find many with alum rivets squished into them.....the plant made airplane wings for WW II bombers at one time so they had been there almost 50 years when I worked there. Some interesting history but the place was all changed when it was sold right after I moved on.

[SwampDonkey]

I've never seen end grain used up here. The only wood flooring that exists in old buildings is most always hard maple, and it's not tung and grooved, just laid edge to edge, usually no wider than 2". Also, some old buildings just had planed spruce flooring, which was painted. I can remember being in old homes when I was a kid, and some of the early flooring before vinyl would be warn through to the original spruce or maple floors. Why someone would want to put that crap on a nice maple floor is beyond comprehension.

[low_48]

All the factory floors at Caterpillar used to be end grain blocks. They were all sealed with tar. Not home friendly. When I worked on those floors, I can remember machine coolant spills that would buckle the floor. They scooped out the blocks, laid in new block, then poured on the tar. Talk about bad smell!
I once saw an end grain block floor laid on This Old House. They used powdered cork and shellac as the grout. The cork would have the give for wood expansion.
Here's a great pic of a cordwood house wall. Maybe it'll give you some ideas. Stupid long links.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://media.43places.com/entry/469607pw150.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.43things.com/entries/view/3712360&usg=__6hsnNN-rsmi-yXqEm0o3zyn5R3k=&h=131&w=150&sz=6&hl=en&start=299&um=1&tbnid=5m5pn7wIF9IlKM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=96&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcordwood%2Bhouse%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D280%26um%3D1

[SwampDonkey]

Stupid long links.

This is how you shorten them.

Much shorter link wouldn't you say?

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